Epilogue of Idle Hearts
by Ms.Tress
Summary: Thanksgiving is just a few days away, Daryl is acting distant and walled off, and Rick is conflicted when he finds himself seeking more than just Daryl's companionship. It's considerably the worst possible time for a town, outfitted with people and guns, to butt heads with them. Dark themes, torture, angst abound, and ridiculous amounts of fluff constitute this very long slowbuild
1. Hostility

Author's Note: Hello, all! Welcome to my first piece of fiction, ever - let me know what you think. I might have to raise the story's rating later, but expect frequent updates throughout these upcoming weeks.

I don't own Walking Dead.

.:Hostility:.

Rick was freezing.

He was sitting on a patch of overturned soil with an old hoe at his feet, sweat dripping from his face and hair and causing him to shiver slightly as he scanned the field of the prison. Marveling at their renovations of the field, he drew an old rag from his front pocket and dabbed at his face, sweat falling into his facial hair. There was a chill in the air setting with the sun, and the world was almost peaceful save for the grunting and grumbling of the walkers lined up against the fence.

A sudden whistle drew his head up, eyes scanning for the source just beyond the gate. The small group of walkers, too, turned to leer at the burly hunter emerging from the forest and began shambling towards him.

Rick promptly rose and pocketed his rag, patting some of the moist soil from his backside as he made towards the gate. He watched Daryl easily dispatch three walkers that came too close for comfort as Rick yanked the cable from the chain link fence to open it for the other man, who quickly ducked through. As the hunter straightened himself out, Rick eyed the two quail hanging from his belt and began threading the coil through the chain in the fence.

"Not bad," Rick nodded towards the poultry. "Carol's gonna be happy."

The scowl that Rick received in return was torrid. "It ain't much." His tone was just as biting.

Rick's brow knitted at his companion's icy state. "It ain't canned. S'more than we've had to say in weeks, almost."

Daryl turned his narrow eyes away from him, upper lip curling defensively. "If y'all so impatient, get yer own damn food." Shaking his greasy bangs in front of his eyes, Daryl adjusted his crossbow and started walking towards the prison, back turned to Rick. Rick watched him go for a moment, broad shoulders hunched, the quail bouncing from his belt, and was left bewildered at the man's mood. Shaking his head, he trotted after Daryl's agitated form, glistening gold from the setting sun.

"Hey," he called up to Daryl, who slowed at the summon but didn't turn to face him. These moods of his came and went quickly enough and were less frequent than earlier that year, but Rick hated them just the same. He was determined to find the cause for the other's disquiet.

"You wanna tell me what's goin' on?" Rick tried. As he fell in step with him, Daryl glanced at Rick's searching gaze before turning his head away to spit. Rick rolled his eyes and turned to walk backwards in front of Daryl, forcing him to make eye contact, and tried again.

"Listen, ain't nobody making you go out there everyday," Rick urged, stopping firmly in front of him. Not looking up, Daryl nearly ran into him and raised his squinted eyes to Rick's.

"You think so?" Daryl challenged.

Rick had no idea where this truculent attitude came from, but he remained unwavering. "I do."

Daryl scoffed and tried to walk past Rick, but the older man shifted to keep him from walking away. Their faces were almost touching as each man waited for the other to back down, and Rick was bitterly reminded of power struggles like this from when the two first met and Daryl was more of a wild card. He hated to think that something in the hunter had brought him back to his combative self - he really liked the prudent man Daryl had become.

"Daryl," he whispered, watching his breath ruffle the other man's long, sweaty locks. Daryl was looking down, but making no move to press forward. "I don't know what's got you this worked up, but it's almost Thanksgiving. This is the happiest everyone's been since the farm, and -"

"And what?" said Daryl abruptly, lashing out and eyes blazing. He stuck his chin up defiantly, pushing Rick back slightly. "Don't screw it up for er'ybody? Don't ruin their little _party_? That what you were gonna say?"

The irate man tried to roughly shoulder past his leader, but Rick stopped him with a heavy hand on his bicep. "No. I was sayin' that I want you happy, too."

In that moment, Daryl had enough decency to appear first shocked, then sheepish. Humble wasn't an emotion that stayed on Daryl's face for long, though, and he quickly looked away and shook out of Rick's now tender grip to step past him, clenching the strap of his crossbow slung over his shoulder.

"Whatever, man. S'all just a shitshow 'n you know it," Daryl huffed as he mounted the steps to the door of the prison two at a time. "There ain't no _Thanksgivin' _no more. No _pumpkin pie. _No goddamn _casserole. _Shit, man, what do we have to be thankful for anyway?"

Daryl looked back at Rick as he said it, a deep sadness in his voice that Rick rarely ever heard, and left without waiting for an answer. He kept the door open for the other man, but was gone by the time Rick entered the prison hallway. Rubbing a soil-dusted hand through his hair, Rick sighed - it had been a long time since Daryl was this moody, and with Thanksgiving less than two weeks away, it was the last thing Rick wanted to deal with.

* * *

><p>Rick entered the main room of the prison just as Daryl threw the two quail on the counter Carol was opening beans at. The woman looked up in surprise at him, but quickly smiled and thanked him. She looked as though she made to say more, but Daryl just grunted at her in response and turned away, stopping when he spotted Rick in the doorway. Rick just nodded at him and stepped aside for him to storm through, all eyes on Daryl's retreating form, then Rick's exhausted face.<p>

Sighing, Rick stepped down the few steps into the dining area where Axel, Oscar, Carol, Beth, and Judith all converged, acknowledging each of them but pausing at Carol's inquisitive face. He looked away and placed a hand on his baby's brow, smiling down at her fondly and greeted them all.

"Sup," said Oscar.

"Hey, man," Axel greeted.

Rick nodded at both of them, sitting down next to Judith and Beth. To Beth, he said, "How is she?"

"She's as hungry as always," Beth giggled, bouncing Judith a bit. "Thanks to Daryl, though, she won't be starving any time soon."

"That goes for all of us," Carol noted as she served lukewarm beans to the three others around the table. Axel and Oscar dug in immediately, but Beth was too immersed in making faces and bouncing Judith to be bothered.

"Homes' got a pretty big heart, don't he?" Oscar said as he shoveled in beans. "Wouldn't know it just by lookin' at 'im."

Axel agreed, bits of beans decorating his moustache. "You'da thought he belonged in here with Thomas at first, but he ain't so bad, not really."

"You say that 'til you get on his bad side," Rick smirked, thinking back to his earlier dispute with the man in question.

Oscar swallowed his mouthful. "Yeah, man, I'd hate to be on the other side of that bow again. He's like a damn Robin Hood with that thing."

Carol puffed as she sat down next to Axel, a steaming mug warming her hands. "Pffft, I think Robin Hood showered a little more than Daryl does. If anything, he's more like Little John in that sense."

"Does that make Rick Robin Hood, then?" Beth chirped up, laughter in her words.

Rick blanched. "Don't let Daryl hear you say that. 'Sides, I'd hardly call us his band of Merry Men."

Carol snorted at that and Beth was giggling again. Axel, however, was gawking as he put down his spoon and cup of beans. "Y'all got them book smarts."

They conversed lightly as they finished their scant meals and eventually Axel and Oscar departed. Beth was cradling a now sleeping Judith, which Rick watched with a melting heart. He hardly noticed as Carol grabbed the dirty dishes around the table and stood up, only looking to her when she cleared her throat.

"Will you, uh, come help me with something, Rick?"

Rick nodded, hearing that something was up by the sound of her voice, and departed Judith with a scruffy kiss on her head. Beth huffed as Judith stirred from his facial hair and scolded Rick teasingly.

"What's up?" Rick asked Carol when they were out of listening distance from Beth.

"Did something happen out there?" Carol asked, worry etching her mousey face.

Rick looked down, figuring that this is what had been bothering her, and shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. He came back all sore as hell over something and just stormed away. Can't say he was acting right before he went off, neither."

Carol sighed, her hands wringing aimlessly at a dishrag, twisting it into mindless shapes of concern. "Yeah, he hasn't been acting like himself for a few days now. Storming about the place, slamming cell doors. He won't talk to me about a darn thing lately, and I think he's starting to worry people."

"Oh yeah? Who?"

"You."

Rick winced and ran his hands down his face heavily. "Maybe. He just, he got in my face, just like he used to. He's agitated. I've been giving him space, but that just seems to piss him off more."

Carol smiled softly, face colored with sympathy, and reached out her hand to offer Rick the dishrag she had been fidgeting with. "I think we've all been there before with Daryl. But I'm worried about him, too, Rick. It's not like him to leave every day to hunt, not anymore anyway. Can you try talking to him again?"

"Me? He ain't even around long enough for me to try."

"You're the only one he'll listen to," Carol reasoned, tone gentle and teasing. "Believe me, it almost makes me jealous sometimes."

She grinned and swatted at him playfully as he wiped the dirt from his hands with the rag. Rick smiled back, but his thoughts were elsewhere - how to get through to his walled off companion. He thought back to their conversation earlier - _well, confrontation, really,_ he corrected himself - and any clues Daryl had accidentally let slip.

Daryl was always guarded; he hardly spoke and when he did, it always felt very measured and careful. The man was a damn mystery to most of their group, and very rarely let his true emotions or intentions show through. As a leader, Rick abhorred this aspect of the hunter, hated having to spend so much time cracking the code that was Daryl. However, the cop in Rick loved the challenge, the chase, that created his friend's psyche. It was the hardest puzzle of a man Rick had ever had the pleasure of dealing with, yet the few times Rick managed to chip away the man's exterior and find his true self underneath were of the most rewarding moments of Rick's immediate life.

Hell, maybe even his whole life, not just after the world went to shit.

As he relived their previous interaction, Rick started to methodically piece together the Daryl enigma and created the very premise of a theory. What's more, he started to think of a way to broach this sensitive topic with a man who seemed like he'd rather wrestle with walkers than discuss his feelings.

Rick looked up at Carol, who was still waiting for his answer with pleading eyes. At the very least, Rick knew he couldn't let down this sweet woman who could never catch a break in her life. The least she deserved was a happy Thanksgiving.

Exhaling he said, "Wish me luck, then," before heading off towards the A Block cells.

* * *

><p>Rick mounted the stairs to the upper level cells loudly enough so that any brooding hunter moping in his solitude would hear him coming. The last thing Rick wanted was to sneak up on Daryl, not that he wholly believed he could, or have the man think he was lurking around the catwalk for some reason or another. The mood Daryl was in left Rick cautious on how to approach him.<p>

Reaching the end of the cell block, with so much space between this cell and any other occupied cell, Rick rapped his knuckle against the cold steel bars of Daryl's room. The man himself was sprawled out on the bottom bunk of the tiny inmate cot, one arm dangling to the ground and the other draped across his eyes. At Rick's knocking, he peaked up past his forearm and scowled when he saw who it was. Like it would have been anyone else daring to confront him.

"Howdy, neighbor," Rick tried lightly, stepping in.

"I ain't got no damn sugar if that's what yer wantin'," Daryl growled back, covering his face again. Rick tried to hide his smile; Daryl's tone might have been unapproachable, but him playing along was reason enough for Rick not to bolt.

"Not even for me?" he teased gently.

Daryl scoffed, lips twitching slightly upwards. "'Specially not fer you."

"You pain me," Rick said sarcastically, clutching his heart and walking over to the side of the cot. He was close enough to hear Daryl mutter "good" snidely under his breath, and reached up to lean his forearms against the top bunk, careening slightly over Daryl's prone figure. Daryl, apparently able to feel how close the other man had gotten, shot up and on to his elbows, coiled tight and peering up at Rick suspiciously with his glacial eyes.

Rick wondered at the reaction, but wasn't exactly surprised by it. Daryl hated anyone being in his personal space, but that was precisely Rick's goal at the moment - get the man uncomfortable enough that he slips up. It didn't exactly make him feel honest or upright, but it was an effective technique in his past life at getting perpetrators to negligently spill details without realizing it. Rick hesitated upon this mentality - was he really treating Daryl as some menial criminal?

Sighing, Rick straightened so he wasn't looming over the man anymore. There was no reason for his friend, best friend even, to find him overtly threatening. His drive to unravel this man to his core was in no way worth further alienating him. The poor guy seemed to feel estranged from the day he and Rick met.

Daryl was clearly on edge still, even without Rick hovering over him. "Something wrong, _Officer_?" he snapped.

"Just wondering what's going on s'all," Rick admitted honestly, feeling a bit put out that his friend was acting so much like his past self. Daryl snorted. "You're puttin' walls up again, Daryl. Thought we were past all this."

"Ain't puttin' up nothin'," he muttered, fidgeting around until his back was propped against the wall. He picked at a hole in his tattered jeans idly, staring at nothing.

"Doesn't seem like nothin'." Rick took that moment to crouch down so that his face was level with Daryl's, ducking his head to try and meet the other man's gaze. "You know we appreciate everything you do for us, right?"

Still picking at loose threads in his frayed jeans, Daryl didn't respond and simply clenched and unclenched his jaw. He almost looked like a child getting scolded for throwing a tantrum, Rick mused, watching Daryl work his jaw muscles testily. "Is that what this is? You think we aren't _grateful_?" Rick ventured, recalling how Daryl argued that they had nothing to be grateful for. "Heck, Daryl, we wouldn't have survived last winter without you."

If Rick had learned anything of this man in their past year's worth of company, it was that Daryl could be incredibly emotional and sensitive despite his brash exterior. It wasn't something most of their group got to see, so Rick tried to always be mindful of it when dealing with him. He was trying in this moment to tread lightly so he didn't ride roughshod and trample Daryl's feelings, so Rick was surprised when Daryl shook his head jerkily.

"S' not that," Daryl was looking away now, chewing on his bottom lip.

Rick's eyebrows rose. "You wanna tell me what it is, then?"

Daryl's cold blue eyes darted to Rick's face, lip curled back in a sneer. "Thought you had to read me my rights before questioning me, officer."

Letting out an exacerbated sign, Rick dropped his forehead against the stale mattress of the cot and closed his eyes. "Don't keep doin' this, Daryl. Pushing everyone out. I just… I want to help you. We all do; Carol, Hershel, Carl - "

"You really wanna help?"

Looking up from the mattress, Rick saw a strange look on Daryl's face. It seemed so misplaced in the hunter's usually stoic, self-assured eyes that Rick had trouble even grasping that Daryl could possibly feel so… unsure. A guarded vulnerability had softened Daryl's usually sharp and confident features and it made Rick's heart clench curiously. He didn't like seeing this man so timorous, like he was expecting Rick to just laugh in his face for considering his help. It was all Rick could do to nod his head slowly, hoping to erase some of this new uncertainty brewing in Daryl's mind.

"Yeah, Daryl. I really do."

Daryl's face became reserved and calculating again, watching Rick. "I'm going on a hunt again in two days," Daryl spoke, words slow and measured. Silence followed after, like he assumed Rick knew where he was going with it and had left it at that.

"Okay…?" Rick prompted, not knowing how going on yet another hunt would help Daryl. The man fled to the forest numerous times a week when he wasn't planning runs into town.

"Come with me."

Rick couldn't help his brows knitting in surprise at the offer. The two men had gone on hunts together only a small handful of times, and Rick couldn't fathom how his hunting skills could help Daryl. The man was a damn David Boone compared to him.

"'Less you think tending to some garden all day sounds better," Daryl smirked. "Not like you don't do that shit e'eryday anyway."

Smiling, Rick shrugged half-heartedly. "Reckon I could let Carl take over for a few hours."

"Might be more 'n a few hours."

Unable to tell if the other man was joking or not, Rick clasped Daryl's forearm and stood up, wincing when his back cracked. "So long as it gets you outta this funk."

"Not gonna be any help out there if you keep popping like that, old man," Daryl finally cracked a half-smile, eyes squinted humorously. Rick glared back but was satisfied by Daryl finally acting like himself enough to make his leave.

Rolling his shoulders, Rick turned towards the cell door. "I'll make sure to stretch before then, punk."

Rick was practically out the cell door, feeling the matter finally settled, when Daryl's voice stopped him in the hallway. "We're leaving at sunrise." It was an unspoken rule, practically common sense amongst the group that Daryl left at sunrise for each hunt, but the uncertainty in his voice had returned and caused Rick to look back at him. The hunter had scooted to sit on the edge of the mattress and was watching Rick, face plagued with that strange and foreign softness.

Gazing into the other man's face, Rick felt his heart clenching almost painfully again and nodded in assent before leaving the cell, running away from that haunting look. Running away from the damn near crushing sensation he felt in his heartstrings at Daryl's soft and tormented words.

_Come with me._


	2. Breathable

.:Breathable:.

It was almost unsettling that the indomitable spirit which composed that of Daryl Dixon had suddenly become so unsure of itself. This monolith of a man, what was essentially the ever-present anchor of the group, was unhinging himself at something tumulchuous inside, some inner turmoil that he never leaked to the group.

If Rick had to guess at the source of this man's atrophy, he would bet his cleanest pair of socks that it had something to do with his volatile past. The younger man was more forthcoming with hugs than he was with sharing his life from before the turn, and Rick had never seen the man willingly hug anyone. That pain in his chest throbbed at the thought. The very few, very tiny tidbits of information Rick managed to glean from the other man left him with an acrid taste in his mouth, not unlike from before when he'd get calls reporting child abuse or abandonment.

Shaking his head, Rick tried to rid himself of that hollow feeling. Rick was vehemently protective over everyone in the group, as they were all well aware, but that innate sense of preserving one's own was hardly ever needed by Daryl, as much as he was included in it. Daryl was strong, a bulwark in his own right that Rick would fight to the death for but was never particularly called upon. Instead, it often seemed as though their roles were reversed and Daryl was in fact the one keeping Rick safe at all costs.

Pondering their separate bearings on the group, Rick almost didn't notice Carol's timid form approaching him.

"Hey," he greeted, smiling.

She smiled back, though it hardly reached her eyes. "Did you talk to him?"

Rick nodded and continued walking, knowing she would fall in step next to him.

"Well?"

"He asked me to go on a hunt with him."

"That's it?" she almost sounded disappointed, as if she expected more of a resolution after all of Daryl's storming around.

"That's it," Rick affirmed with a shrug.

"Well, when are you going?" They were headed towards the dining area again. It seemed to be where Carol was most comfortable.

"Two days from now. Didn't say why or how long, but I'm gonna have to ask Carl to tend to the potatoes if we want any by Thanksgiving," Rick said, opening their food cupboard when they arrived.

Carol dropped the subject and leaned back against sink, staring out towards the cell block with a small smile upon her lips. After a few moments of silence passed, she said, "I still can't believe we're celebrating Thanksgiving. We all thought Beth was joking when she brought it up a couple weeks ago."

Still looking at different cans, Rick remembered back to when the date first came up. Beth had insisted on keeping track of time, saying that it was important to hold on to something that had meant so much to them in the past. Rick remembered also feeling like it had been said in bad taste, not really seeing the point of such an ostentatious holiday in such bleak circumstances.

But that's exactly the point, she had said. Wide eyed and breathlessly giddy, she tried to appeal to every last one of them - Hershel because this was one of the few things he could do to see his daughter so alive with excitement, Maggie because this would be her and Glenn's first official family dinner, Axel and Oscar because they hadn't gotten to celebrate Thanksgiving in years, and ultimately Rick, who couldn't say 'no' to how captivated Carl was getting by the idea of normalcy - until eventually everyone was on board.

Almost everyone.

Beth had scampered over to Daryl's sulking form leaning against an inconspicuous wall, trying desperately to make him see the value in saying grace and revelling as a family for just one day. His only response was to scoff and leave without another word, much to Beth's dismay.

Ever since, most of the prison was constantly in a festive and jovial mood, with the occasional heavy footfalls or slamming doors to remind them of the one partypooper among them. Hershel was planning with Rick the different vegetables they could grow in time for their holiday cornucopia of food, wanting to surprise his daughters with some homegrown produce instead of simply a canned dinner. Glenn and Maggie were commandeering runs into towns for supplies in Daryl's constant and consistent absence. Beth was making decorations with their very limited resources whenever she wasn't holding Judith, and everyone else was trading old Thanksgiving stories back and forth.

Nostalgia was palpable and thick in the air and for most of them, it was a pleasant, refreshing feeling.

It hadn't been for Rick.

"Sick joke," Rick muttered, more to himself than to Carol, not even seeing the cans in his hand anymore.

She turned to look at him inquisitively. "You're not excited?"

At this point, Rick was just turning various cans round in his hands and shrugged in response, detached. "You are?"

Her barking laugh sounded bittersweet, almost forced, in Rick's ears. "Well, this is the first Thanksgiving in _years_ I've had where I don't have to worry about Ed watching every little thing I do. 'Cause of that, I bet this'll be the best darn meal I've ever cooked. I don't even know how I ever managed to carve the turkey with how bad my hands were always shaking."

Rick grinned with her, not quite knowing what to say in return. Whenever Carol brought up her late husband, everyone fell quiet - Rick thought it was because they all turned the other cheek whenever Ed had been terrorizing her.

"Well, you won't have to worry about that anymore - "

"But this is also my first Thanksgiving without Sophia," Carol interrupted and quickly wiping away the beginnings of a tear before it could form, smile looking fragile. "And yours without Lori. Daryl's without his brother, awful as he might have been, and even Hershel and the girls. We've all lost somebody this past year."

Mouth dry from hearing Lori's name, Rick set the can down harder than he had intended. It shook Carol out of her tight coil and she reached over and placed a hand on Rick's, trying to sooth him. It wasn't very effective.

"We need this," quivered Carol. "All of us, Rick. This new world we live in, without our loved ones, it's not a good world but it's the only one we have."

Rick was looking at her now, eyes hard, and feeling that usual stiffness in his bones whenever Lori rose to his conscience. She seemed aware of his change in composure but continued anyway, squeezing his hand.

"The people we have now are the only ones we get to have anymore. So no, I don't get to break the wishbone with my daughter anymore, but I might get to peel potatoes with Axel, or - or sing with Beth at dinner, o-or…" she broke off, face crumpling, and let go of Rick's hand to press hers to her face.

Rick watched this sweet woman's fleeting strength leave her to deteriorate into a mess in front of him and he swallowed his ire, unclenched his muscles. The whites in his knuckles disappeared, as did the red in his vision, as he wrapped his arms around Carol's thin frame. As changed of a person as she was, she very rarely seemed to know what to do with her strength when she managed to find it, and Rick knew this was more important than chasing a ghost in his mind.

"I know, I get it," he started, clearing his throat. "This dinner's more about grieving than it is celebrating."

"No," she stopped him. "It's about moving on."

* * *

><p>Rick couldn't fathom why Daryl would ask him of all people to aid in a hunt, but certainly wasn't complaining - he had grown quite weary of the hunter going to any length to avoid him and the rest of the group. Rick hadn't even seen Daryl coddling Judith much these past two weeks and normally the two were inseparable.<p>

The two days that Daryl had planned for had come to pass and Rick found himself awake and excited, pacing the confines of the cell for the sun to rise. Since the announcement of Thanksgiving, Rick hadn't left the prison grounds once and instead opted to accept Hershel's guidance in growing crops. Rick felt eager elation rising in him at the prospect of leaving the gates again and hurriedly buckled his holster and knife to him, enthused at being armed with more than simple farm tools.

After checking himself over once more, Rick left his cell and quickly headed towards the dining area. Most of the prison seemed to be dormant, but he could hear hushed chatter coming from the dining area. Between the exposed cells and the acoustics of the prison walls, privacy was paltry, something of the old world and it didn't leave much to the imagination. Rick slowed his steps, listening in to the rough voices.

Daryl and Oscar.

He couldn't quite hear what they were talking about, but it was the first time Rick had heard Daryl speak to anyone else in a while. It was almost relieving.

When he entered the dining room, the two other men fell silent. Rick smiled at them as if their sudden change in demeanor wasn't completely obvious and walked over to where Daryl was reclining against the counter.

"Mornin'," Rick piped happily as he dug through the cabinet, shuffling through the canned squash and the canned green beans. Canned breakfast, lunch, dinner, and everything in between.

Daryl nodded at him but remained quiet as he stared down Oscar sitting at the small table, who wouldn't return his gaze and instead greeted Rick back. "You seem awful chipper this morning, sheriff. Big day?"

Rick stole a dubious look with Daryl, who had his arms crossed over his chest with his freshly washed bangs dangling in his narrowed eyes.

"Reckon you could call it that," Rick answered, settling on a can of vienna sausages for breakfast and cracking it open. "Been too long since I saw the outside world. Looking to get a breath of fresh air again."

The appalled look Rick got in return from Oscar got him chuckling as he speared a pale sausage with his ocelot, unable to find a fork. "You call _that _fresh air?"

"I call _that _more exciting than watching grass grow, that's for damn sure."

Oscar heaved his shoulders, eyes wide and disbelieving. "What about them geeks crawling 'round?"

"A small headache, I'll give 'em that," Rick smirked around a mouthful of spongy meat, thoroughly enjoying watching Oscar's growing bewilderment. "Nothin' Daryl 'n I haven't dealt with 'fore."

"Y'all are crazy round here, shit," Oscar muttered, shaking his head.

Daryl pipped up, voice gravelly around his crooked smile. "Ain't nothing like diggin' your knife inta one, knowing ya get ta live that much longer."

Rick found himself laughing slightly at the convict's reaction, the trembling in his shoulders and tugging at his lips feeling almost out of place anymore. Shoving another sausage in his mouth, he turned to lean against the counter as well. "Daryl gets it."

Unconsciously and still shaking and grinning with mirth, Rick offered the can towards the hunter next to him who absently reached his fingers in to grab one. Daryl's expression almost mirrored Rick's in its humor as he chewed the vienna sausage, and the atmosphere actually felt _breathable _for a change.

"Yeah, I bet he does," Oscar mused ambiguously, getting up from the steel bench and stretching his large body. "Well, you two have fun, then. Since this shit seems to be right up your alley and all. G'night."

They said their goodbyes as he left, seeming to take the jovial mood with him. With just the two of them, Daryl went back to crossing his arms and being aloof and Rick felt the smile melt from his lips. The bland viennas tasted sour in his mouth suddenly and he forced down the rest before turning to Daryl, signaling that he was ready to go.

"Let's hit it," Daryl announced and shouldered his crossbow while heading out the door. Rick tailed him, squinting his eyes when they entered the glow of the rising sun.

"Time for that fresh air you want so bad."


	3. Confections

.:Confections:.

Time seemed sluggish out in the open, surrounded by nothing but trees and the all-consuming presence next to him. Rick had always admired the agile way Daryl moved when in his comfort zone, which was primarily prowling through the forest for prey and undead alike, and always felt quite inept when floundering around next to him.

Today was no different, and Rick cursed every time he managed to find a branch underfoot, the forest floor sounding no better than a field of landmines in the early morning calm. The other man gave him a derisive glare every time he broke the silence, but otherwise behaved as if he were slinking around the woods solo. Rick was admittedly happy for the other man's company, as unforthcoming as it was, and hoped Daryl was finding whatever catharsis he had expected to in Rick's added companionship.

Enough hours had gone by for the sun to be fully over the horizon now, shortening their shadows and warming their skin. Rick was nothing if not a patient man, and he usually relaxed in the quiet of Daryl's presence - even finding comfort being with someone who wasn't constantly trying to get him to speak - but even he could feel the end of that virtue approaching with the prolonged silence.

"Where we headed, Daryl?" Rick broke, watching the man flinch at the sound.

Daryl glanced at him and nodded north in the direction they were headed. "Found somethin' up ahead last time I came out."

"That why you brought me along?"

Scowling at Rick's prodding, Daryl shrugged. "Figured it couldn't hurt to show ya."

Rick smiled, stepping over some foliage. "You gonna tell me what it is?"

"You'll see soon enough."

Soon, the woods surrounding them began morphing into less wild terrain and Rick was perceptive enough to see they were soon encroaching on an urban area. It wasn't much later that Daryl signaled for Rick to crouch down with him, poised and peering through a once maintained thicket of hedges. Past the overgrown branches, Rick could see a small cul-de-sac on the outskirts of a larger town, two walkers shambling about listlessly.

Rick looked to Daryl who was watching the two corpses, waiting to see what Daryl brought him along for. The hunter nudged him and pointed towards a building too small and squat to be a house. Rick squinted, face scrunching in attempt to make out what it was. A shed? A barn?

"Thought I finished all them walkers last time I was here. Must've come from somewhere else." Daryl shrugged his crossbow into position, scoping down the sights. "S'only two of 'em, though."

"We don't know that yet," said Rick, hastily lowering Daryl's arm. The older man looked around them, then nodded to the left of their position behind the shrubbery. "We go around, see if they're alone. We don't need any surprises out here."

Daryl glanced at the two groaning walkers and nodded, quickly turning to circle around the left of the suburb without hesitation. The two men skated the backs of the houses all lined up in a ring, eyes open for any threats while they cautiously made their way to the small hut Daryl was leading them to. As far as walkers went, Rick could only note the two out in the middle of the street, though he was sure there were still some in the houses.

"Looks clear," Rick spoke, signaling to Daryl. He drew his knife while Daryl raised his crossbow once more, training his sights on the female corpse moaning hungrily to the right.

"I got right."

Rick nodded, leaving the confines of the shrubs and walking towards the undead. He rarely ever felt a sense of urgency anymore when dealing with a handful of walkers, especially with Daryl at his back like usual. Rick found himself smiling as he approached the rotting bodies, feeling the familiarity of their teamwork almost like a muscle memory. It was a comfort, the two of them.

Something about their synergy felt more at home than even his old life now.

Gripping the handle of his knife in his hand, Rick met the lifeless man's death grip on his shoulders with a grasp of his decaying neck to keep him at arm's length, using his other hand to drive the curved blade into the walker's temple. The snarling and spitting fight the walker put up left him in an instant and the claws clutching Rick's shirt dropped limply.

Grimacing now, Rick slid the knife out with a sickening _schlick _and tossed the body off of him. As he looked up at the female walker now charging him with her jaws snapping, an arrow instantly imbedded itself in her left eye, stopping her just as effectively as any dagger. She dropped as well and Rick found himself smiling again, despite the macabre scene surrounding them, as he roughly yanked out the arrow from her decimated cranium.

"The hell you smiling for?" Daryl came up behind him, startling him.

Rick handed him the bloodied arrow, shrugging. "This ain't quite what I'd call fresh air, but I think it might just be exactly what I needed."

Daryl remained silent, but accepted his arrow with a tiny smile dancing across his lips momentarily. Flicking the blood off the arrowhead, Daryl restrung his crossbow and loaded it. "C'mon, dork."

Together, they watchfully made their way to the singular, unremarkable building that Rick could see was now made of glass. And full of verdant plants. And…

"A greenhouse," he breathed, entering the dewy room.

Daryl watched Rick's gaping reaction and looked momentarily pleased with himself. "Found it when I was tracking a boar. The bastard got away, but I saw this 'n managed ta clear it out."

There was an opening broken into the roof of it, shattered bits of glass glimmering underfoot, that Daryl pointed towards. "Up there," he nudged Rick. "Don't know what could'a done that, but it lets the rain in when it storms."

Eyes wide, Rick looked around in awe and tried to absorb everything. This could be life changing for them if they managed to tend to it somehow - already Rick's mind was churning, trying to process ways they could optimize this for their family. Idea after idea popped into his mind until he felt a wide hand palming his shoulder. Rick looked down at it, then up the arm to Daryl's face, transparent and full of something Rick couldn't quite comprehend.

"C'mon," Daryl jostled him, walking towards the back of the greenhouse. "All the good stuff's back here."

"Too good fer tomatoes?" Rick joked, still in wonder at this stroke of luck as they passed by ripening tomatoes and cucumbers. There were pots lined up in columns, looking like it had once been orderly, but now most of the plants and vines had overgrown down the sides of the containers. Various vegetables were flowering from eggplants to spinach and Rick even spotted the beginnings of some type of pepper budding. His mouth watered at the memory of spicy foods - he had never much cared for that heated flavor before the turn, but being picky was a luxury they couldn't afford and Rick found himself looking forward to the taste.

"You'll see," Daryl eyed him from over his shoulder as he led him to the back wall of the building. He reached up on his toes and dug his hands into a hanging plant, one of many that decorated the back wall, his face scrunched in concentration and tongue peeking out slightly.

With a smirk, Daryl drew some something that he held out to Rick - a small, maroon berry that looked perfectly ripe was nestled in the palm of the hunter's hand. "Here," Daryl insisted.

Rick looked up at him with a bemused grin, plucking the raspberry from his palm with delicate fingers. "We have fruit?"

"Lot more where that came from", Daryl gestured to the rest of the plants. "We got strawberries coming in, too."

Grinning still, Rick popped the raspberry into his mouth and sucked on it, face crinkling and mouth puckering from the exploding tartness of it all. "Oh my god, it's like candy."

He heard Daryl chuckle at Rick's reaction and watched him place one of the berries in his own mouth. They hadn't had fruit since Hershel's farm, save for the canned peaches and pears that stocked the prison, and Rick wanted that alien taste again. He had forgotten how artificial tasting the canned fruits were and revelled in Daryl's find. Rick stood on his toes as well, groping around the leaves for more, and said, "We need to find a way to bring this back to the prison somehow."

Daryl nodded, a small handful of raspberries in his hand. "Can't without a car, though. Tried."

Rick looked around, mouth stained with the taste and color the the berries as he sucked on another one, and tried the plan the best way to transport everything. He'd have to talk with Hershel about what to bring and how to go about it, but already Rick was feeling the festive sentiment of Thanksgiving stirring in his belly.

"C'mere," Daryl started, turning Rick around to explore the right side of the back wall. Different leaves floated around their heads and dangled at their waists and Rick tried cataloging every plant he saw - strawberries, cranberries, some type of melon - while Daryl stopped and crouched down in front of a bush.

Gingerly, Daryl plucked a small, dark berry from the bush and Rick stooped down next to the other man, looking at the blackberry in Daryl's hand. He rolled it in between his fingers for a moment, looking as hesitant as ever, and tentatively held it out to Rick. Rick stared at it for a moment, stared at Daryl's suddenly timid demeanor, and accepted it gratefully. It was warm in his mouth from Daryl's fingers.

"Thanks," said Rick, bleeding the fruit of its almost bittersweet juices with his tongue.

Daryl nodded, not looking at him, and reached into the plant for more. "This was the best thing I ever got for Thanksgiving. Love 'em now."

Rick stopped playing with the fruit in his mouth and stared pointedly at the other man, who was sucking on a fruit with a pensive look on his face. He tilted his head to try and meet Daryl's eyes, swallowing the blackberry. "You just ate blackberries all day? What about the stuffing or, or the biscuits?" Rick laughed anxiously, already having a sense of Daryl's answer.

"We ain't had none a' that," Daryl said solemnly, confirming Rick's sickening intuition.

"No ham or gravy or nothin'?"

Daryl scoffed. "I got a PB&J if I was home ta make it, otherwise it was whate'er I could find. Got a squirrel once."

"So you…" Rick started, stopping to ballast himself against this torrent of protective emotions. "You have _never _celebrated Thanksgiving?"

Shrugging, Daryl kept his eyes trained on the blackberry busy, bottom lip between his teeth. Rick was starting to see it as the nervous habit it was. "Ain't ne'er had nothin' ta celebrate."

Rick closed his eyes, feeling that painful clenching in his heart at Daryl's confession, unable to keep the white from spreading across his knuckles. When he opened his eyes he saw Daryl watching him, glancing down at the fists he made. His face was impassive.

"Daryl," Rick started, working to keep his voice even.

The hunter interrupted him. "You can save yer sympathy. Ne'er wanted that from anyone."

It hit Rick quite forcefully why Daryl had been in such an irritable mood for the last two weeks. He hadn't been too excited himself at the prospect of celebrating Thanksgiving within the austere confines of the prison, especially after the people they had lost, but he had come around when everyone started cheerfully swapping old Thanksgiving stories. Rick had never once considered the likelihood that Daryl didn't have any happy stories of his own to share.

He felt like a first class, bona fide idiot in that moment.

Always compassionate, always attentive to Daryl's emotions and he never thought to consider how painful this might be for him. Rick could've kicked himself right then.

"Ya told me ain't nobody expects me ta go out there," he reminisced, eyes soft and distant. His large fingers tore apart a fallen leaf distractedly, tossing it to the side roughly when it became nothing but frayed veins. "Yer wrong 'bout that. E'er since Beth brought it up, they all look at me like they expect me ta just pull Thanksgiving out ma' ass or somethin'."

Rick winced at his colorful language and put a hand on Daryl's shoulder with the intention of arguing with him, but the other man shook off his touch and stood up strenuously.

"E'rytime I come back from a hunt, they act like I'm goddamn Santa Claus with no presents or some shit. They all…" Daryl trailed off, frustrated.

Standing up, Rick nodded. Daryl looked at him, helplessly speechless, but Rick understood. The other man had never really been articulate or eloquent in expressing himself, which was something Rick always found they shared in, and Rick had learned overtime how to understand Daryl's intentions past his words alone.

"Yeah, everyone went a little overboard with this, I'll give ya that. But that ain't on you."

"I just…" Daryl shrugged. "I don't wanna let anyone down."

As he connected the dots, a small smile danced upon Rick's lips. Daryl noticed and raised an eyebrow. "That what you wanted my help with?"

Daryl's small eyes darted between Rick's vivid ones and his gentle smile, remaining silent for a moment before nodding. That same, open and vulnerable look was lingering on his normally rough face, and Rick's smile widened. "It'd be my pleasure."

The smile on Rick's face was slowly, painfully gradually, returned. Daryl smiled back at him, not a roguish half smile, not a cocky smirk or a shiteating grin, but a small, honest smile. It made Rick's head spin for a reason he couldn't fathom, and before he could try, before he could even revel in making the calloused man smile or appreciate the way the corners of his eyes crinkled just slightly, a cold and putrid weight fell upon him from his right.

"Rick!"

The snarling and dripping in his ear, the decaying in his nose, the cold wall of the greenhouse surging to meet his body all sent off an animalistic fury in him. Rick twisted his body around so he could raise his arms against the thick, entropic body pressed to his, pinning him against the back of the building.

Leaves and vines decorated the walker's face, driving towards Rick's face with a gaping mouth and eroded teeth. Rick gripped the oncoming face by the forehead, reaching for his knife with his other, the dead skin crumbling and tearing like paper beneath his fingertips. The snarling maw was mere inches from his face now and his entire world was filled with the stench of rot and the dead gaze of hungry eyes. Rick turned his head and pressed his cheek to the cold, slick surface of the glass, desperate to keep his nose out of the shrinking biting range.

He grabbed his knife handle just as the walker's face left his, instantaneous. The weight thrashing against his own was pried off and thrown to the side by a very rigid, very pissed Daryl who quickly mounted the prone walker's back and started slamming it's face into the ground by it's wispy hair.

Dazed, hand still at his dagger, Rick watched his friend lay into the walker repeatedly.

Rick looked around for any more threats and drew his knife when the thudding next to him continued. Stooping down next to Daryl and the jerking walker, Rick thrust his ocelot into the back of its head and the hunter up looked at him, irritated.

"Think we got 'em, Daryl," Rick wiped the gore from his blade on the collar of the corpse and stood.

Daryl sneered at him and rose as well, face coming close to Rick's combatively. He was close enough for Rick to see the hellfire in his eyes and the Raspberry-pink stain on his lips. "The hell was that anyway? Ya just gon' let some geek sneak up on ya like that?"

Folding his knife, Rick grimaced and stepped back. The adrenaline of the near-death experience was still pounding in his ears and on top of that he could feel a flustered heat rising to his neck at his carelessness. The sweetness lingering in his mouth was replaced with a bitterness at the situation.

"I woulda had it," Rick offered lamely, hearing the feigned assurance in his own ears.

Scoffing, Daryl sauntered away, muttering under his breath while he squatted down and grabbed the walker's wrists. His jaw muscles were tense. "Always gotta be watching yer sorry back. Sicka ya gettin' inta shit."

"It helps knowing you have my back," he ventured.

Daryl glared in return, sitting back on his heels. "Nah, man. 'S like you have a death wish or somethin'. Can't be there all the time, hard as I try."

There was a moment of silence between the men, a look of understanding. Daryl was more than just Rick's wingman, his henchman, his second-in-command - Rick just couldn't quite get what else he could be, what other void the younger man could be filling. All he could boil it down to was the mutual trust between the two, a unique and rare trust built in the forge of hell itself. They managed to survive the apocalypse and defy death's beckon when they had each other.

Hell, they flourished in each others presence, their camaraderie a buffer between them and utter perdition.

Daryl swallowed and looked away awkwardly. Rick did the same. "You gonna help with this sum'bitch or just stand there like a dumbass again?"

The two quickly moved the human remains outside and walled off the entrance of the greenhouse, hoping to save themselves of any nasty surprises in the future. Daryl made a few more jabs at Rick's earlier ordeal before they were lost to the forest once more.


	4. Conceit

.:Conceit:.

There was a fascinating squelching sound accompanied by an arch of spoiled blood marring the air and landing on the chainlink fence as yet another walker fell. A dozen more took its place, crowding the gate and snapping at him vainly while bits of their spongy brain matter and skin blanketed the rusted metal of the fence. One by one, they fell back to pile on top of each other in a stinking mass of death.

Carl methodically worked the rebar he wielded into the foreheads and eye sockets of the animated dead, feeling an odd sense of pride blooming at his ability to perform these grisly tasks without flinching anymore.

_Kill 100 zombies without taking damage. Next level unlocked._

_Achieve 10 zombie headshots in a row. Twenty five points._

_Light a barn full of zombies on fire. Bonus stage._

_Stare a zombie in the eyes while you fill it with rebar. Gold medal._

_Become a totally detached and ruthless killing machine. Good job, kid. Forget Call of Duty._

If his dad could see him work this way, he'd be so proud, Carl knew it. If only his mom could see what he'd turn into, maybe she wouldn't have babied him so constantly. Maybe she'd be proud of him, too.

_Mom…_

Carl stopped his killing process and tried to imagine it. She'd be there, frail bones and swollen belly and all, and then there would be Carl, in front of her, protecting her from a horde of walkers. She'd be terrified, calling for his dad or for Shane, but he'd be there. He'd handle it himself, all by himself. He didn't need any grown ups just to kill a few zombies - he'd lop off their heads or shoot their skulls in before anyone else could show up and try to shield him from it.

Like they even could shield him from it anymore. At this point, he didn't want to be shielded from it and wanted to be there in the messy fray like Glenn or Daryl. He was good at killing walkers, he just didn't get why no one else saw it.

But he'd make them see it. He'd make _mom _see it, and then finally she'd stop treating him like such a kid. She'd be smiling and hugging him, telling him what a good job he did at protecting her, telling him what a good big brother he'd make, telling him everything that he had worked so hard to hear just before she -

Reality all came back to Carl at once and he started thrusting the rebar into the walkers beings more forcefully than ever, feeling his arms start to ache with the heartbreak of it all.

"You okay, Carl?" Beth asked next to him apprehensively with her tiny voice.

"Fine," Carl muttered back, tilting his sheriff's hat to conceal his anguish from her. "Just hate these things is all…"

Beth nodded and wiped her sweaty brow with her forearm before she sunk a long, thin pipe stake into a particularly gruesome face. Carl watched her from the brim of his hat, her pretty features contorted in something akin to nausea as she slid the iron from the walker's brain. He remembered when seeing so much gore made him feel the same way she did.

Bitterly, Carl knew that pride was the last thing his mom would be feeling.

It wasn't much longer until the remaining walkers were laid to rest and Beth threw her weapon down with a clang, stepping back and removing her muddy gloves. With a sigh, she plopped down and leaned back against the other gate, thin fingers fiddling with each other. Carl sat down next to her and took off his hat so he could lean back, looking out into the forest with her.

"Ya know," Beth started, voice cracking slightly. "I still can't bring myself to hate these things like everyone else."

She gestured towards the bodies, but Carl was staring at her now and was having a hard time registering what she was saying, much less identifying with it.. "What?" he asked brusquely.

Her blue eyes darted to his, eyes defensive at his tone. "I can't. They're still…"

"People?" he finished for her, voice dripping with sarcasm. She looked down, gossamer hair framing her face. "These things _aren't _people."

"They were," Beth said firmly, looking to him now.

Carl swallowed. He couldn't think like that anymore. It was dangerous. Toxic. Better to compartmentalize than to sympathize is what this world had taught him. Hell, it was what his dad had taught him.

Still, he couldn't argue with her.

"I think…" she started again, hesitant. Carl waited. "I think I might've been happier back at our barn, back when I thought we could help them, or at least… do something other than just kill 'em."

Carl thought about it. Could he say the same?

"I mean," she continued, voice gaining strength when her companion didn't argue with her. "We fed them for Christ's sake. I really thought there was somethin' we could do - about my mom, and," her voice started to break, "and Shawn, and that little girl."

"Sophia," Carl amended, feeling his blood turn cold.

Beth nodded shakily. "At least back then, the world wasn't just about killing. It wasn't kill or be killed."

They fell to silence and Carl thought about what Beth had said. Had he been happier? Of course he had been. He had his mom, his dad, Shane even. Dale hadn't died because of him, Hershel still had his leg. He was going to find Sophia, going to save her from whatever hell she'd been through, carry her and deliver her to Carol, who would cry and thank him. She would never be afraid again with him around, and his dad would be so proud, Shane would smack him on the back and call him a man, and his mom -

Was he really happier?

Carl swallowed thickly, unable to believe that things were really happier before. He remembered his panic at learning about the walkers in the barn, his vindication at it being purged, his crushing horror at seeing Sophia's body stumble from the barn towards them. Even now, he could feel the sickness spike in his blood at the memory. He felt like somehow Beth's words did Sophia some injustice.

"You're wrong," Carl broke the silence, forcing Beth to look back up at him. "It's always been like that. We just never saw it that way 'cause we thought we could do something about it. We can't."

Beth's brows knit together. Two walkers came shambling towards the fence from the edge of the trees and Carl rose to greet them, gripping his rebar tightly and placing the sheriffs hat on his head. Carl could feel her eyes on him as he jammed the bar into the left one's temple and let it fall to the ground. She stood next to him, looking from him to the remaining walker and back to him before she stabbed it in the forehead with her stake.

"It can't all just be fire and brimstone, Carl," Beth said tentatively as she met his eyes once the walker had fallen.

Carl scoffed cynically. "Name _one person _who can still say they're happy in all this."

She shrugged her pale shoulder offhandedly. "Judith."

The laughter that erupted from Carl's mouth surprised them both, his eyes welling up from the humor of it all, and managed to reply, "She doesn't count, she's just a baby."

"Babies count," she defended.

Carl was still laughing. "No, they don't."

"Fine," Beth huffed and crossed her arms. "My daddy's still happy."

"After losing both of his wives and his leg?" Carl shot back callously. There was a twitch of emotion on Beth's soft face. "I don't know that he'd agree with you. Who else?"

A pause stretched between them and it looked like Beth was trying to gather the nerve to say something. Nothing came and Carl felt a bittersweet victory at stumping her. "C'mon," he prompted. "Nobody?"

Beth rose her chin confidently in response. "Your dad."

Carl felt like she had smacked him, pain and tingles and all. His laugh this time was more derisive, more jeering, at her nerve. "_My dad?"_

Despite his cutting edge, Beth nodded her assurance. Carl ran a hand down his face like he had seen his dad do when he was trying to reason with a brick wall of a person and shook his head.

"How can you say that after he went crazy just a few months ago?" he probed, feeling a sick hope leaking through the cracks in his emotional compartments and infecting his cynicism. There's no way he could believe his dad was better off now than he was before, though he couldn't keep some small part of him from wanting that to be true just because someone else could believe it to be true.

He combated the rosy hope rising in him, knowing how noxious it could be to his carefully constructed veneer of apathy. "I've never seen him more… broken."

"Well I've never seen him more at peace," Beth threw back vehemently.

Carl gaped at her. "How can you say that?"

"In all my time around him," her cheeks were flushed with the nerve of her words, "it's always been 'Lori this, Shane that'. Well now, for the first time ever, I see him actually getting to relax."

The truth in her words held more impact than the .308 Winchester round that had torn through him a year ago and there was no way to soften the blow.

"For once, he ain't gotta watch his back."

He cringed at her words, simultaneously wanting them to be true for his dad's sake and hating their shred of truth for his mom's sake, his own sake.

"He's actually smiling, Carl, and that never happened back at the barn. How can _you _say he ain't happier?"

Swallowing the lump in his throat down to the pit in his stomach, Carl turned to walk away from her. "'Cause my mom's dead." Before he could get far, Beth grabbed his arm and turned him around to face her, face alive with conviction.

"So's mine," she bit back. "But that doesn't mean my daddy's gotta be miserable for the rest of his life."

Carl shook his arm from her grasp roughly. "Maybe it should for my dad."

Shock filled Beth's features at his spiteful words, her petite mouth slightly agape. If he hadn't been so riled up, Carl might have felt embarrassed at fighting with the girl, but he was too far gone for the sentiment.

"You don't really believe that, do you?"

"Maybe I do," he muttered, starting to walk away again. This time, instead of stopping him, Beth scurried along with him.

"He's your _dad_, Carl," she insisted.

Carl scowled. "So what? He wasn't around when the walkers attacked our house. He wasn't around when _I _took care of mom. Even now, he's just out goofing off with Daryl."

"He's taken care of all of us, Carl," Beth pursed her lips. "We all owe him a lot, including you. Don't you think he deserves the chance to goof off from time to time?"

They were walking up the grassy hill to the prison now, the sun high in the sky and their stomachs growling. Carl didn't answer, so Beth continued. "If Daryl's what makes him happy, then I'm glad your dad has him."

Carl's eyes narrowed at her from under the shade of the hat. "He ain't Shane and he ain't my mom."

"Maybe that's not what your dad needs right now," Beth ventured gently.

"What do you know about what my dad needs?"

Beth rolled her eyes at him, exasperated. "Nothing really. But maybe Daryl does. I've never seen Rick smile so much around someone before, other than Judith anyway."

It hurt, but Carl forced himself to consider it. He didn't want anyone fulfilling the roles that his mom did, and he vehemently rejected the idea of Daryl being the one his dad went to to find happiness. Beth was wrong, she had to be - there was no way his dad smiled more now than he used to, not with his mom's absence haunting them. Carl didn't know if he thought his dad deserved that.

His mind wandered back to his reverie before, about his mom praising him for killing all those walkers. _You're a man now, _he had imagined her saying, hugging her to him and finally recognizing his hard-earned maturity. His heart throbbed painfully knowing how misplaced the words were, even in his fantasy.

It felt wrong all over. False. Phoney.

The sham mom in his head smiled at him while he cut down walker after walker, piling up the death count, and blessed his prowess at protecting everyone. _Just like your father,_ she'd say.

His real mom had cried and tried to pull the weapons from his hands, scolding him and telling him that he knew better. That these were for adults only and to go hide, look away, stay innocent, forever.

His mom had lived in a fantasy world, Carl realized. The old world, where little boys didn't have to shed blood to survive and where husbands wouldn't go on runs to keep everyone safe and keep their wives distant. It had hurt him, pushed him further and further away from her, and Carl recognized that maybe it had happened with his dad, too.

That maybe everything wasn't his dad's fault.

That maybe, just maybe, his dad could have deserved whatever happiness he could bear to manage after his wife pushed him away in favor of her fantasy world.

The two arrived at the side door to the prison and Carl opened it, holding it open for Beth to go through first. She smiled at him and began walking inside, but stopped suddenly to turn to him.

"You know, there isn't much happiness to go around anymore," she began, eyes never leaving his. "And I think maybe, maybe we should all take what we can get, even your dad." With that being said, Beth paused for a moment before leaning over to Carl and brushing her tender lips to his dirty cheek for a split second. Carl stiffened, heat spreading through his body from where her lips had made contact with him. She smiled at him before quickly turning around, hair flicking in the air, and ran through the prison hallway.

A lopsided smile crossed Carl's face as he touched his cheek.

Maybe they all did deserve what little shreds of happiness found them, even if it meant someone other than his mom being in his and his dad's life.

Author's Note: Let me know how these other characters felt. Being my first piece, I'm really aiming for accurate characterization. Thank you!


	5. Novice

.:Novice:.

"So how exactly do ya want me to help?"

Rick looked over at Daryl, who was analyzing their surroundings with a practiced eye. The two men had stopped for lunch not even an hour ago, eating a plump squirrel on a spit that Daryl had managed to rig together, and were now wandering rather aimlessly as far as Rick could tell. The hunter had kept quiet for most of their time after the greenhouse, seemingly still agitated by Rick's brush with the sneaking dead, and Rick was ready for a break from the heavy silence.

Daryl glanced at him and shrugged helplessly. "I dunno, jus'... give me some pointers or sum shit."

Laughing slightly at the other man's ambiguity, Rick said, "Pointers? You want me to give you pointers on...? What? Wandering through the forest? 'Cause I think we got that down pat."

"You tell me." The hunter stopped and turned to his companion, irritation on his sharp features. "'Cause I ain't got a clue where ta start with all this."

Rick swallowed at Daryl's narrowed and defensive eyes, putting his hands up in a gesture of neutrality. He watched his friend and thought for a moment, understanding wholeheartedly his distress at taking on the entire world and feeling like he's failed it. In this case, though, the whole world was a meager dozen people grouped together and desperate for some happiness. Rick knew what it felt like to make that his vital responsibility, and pondered the best way for Daryl to deliver.

"Well…" Rick started. "Figure the turkey's as good a place as any to start."

Daryl held his gaze for a moment longer, but nodded when he seemed satisfied with Rick's answer. Without another word, the man shouldered his crossbow and looked up, attention eventually landing on a tree that peaked out over the rest. Before Rick managed to figure out what he was doing, Daryl quickly sauntered over to the trunk of it and mounted the branches. His strong body reached up to branch after jutting branch, quickly and surprisingly gracefully scaling the tree.

"Daryl…" Rick called up to him, standing beneath him now and looking up. He was about to say something else when he realized the only thing he could see from down there was the other man's backside and quickly looked away.

"Enjoyin' the view?" Daryl hollered back down. His voice was thin with the strain of hoisting himself up.

Rick flushed and hoped Daryl couldn't see it from how high up he was. It's not like he had been intentionally scoping out the hunter's rear end, but there was no way he could begin to explain himself without digging himself into a deeper, more awkward hole. "I'd enjoy ya not fallin' to yer death."

"Ya had better catch me, then," he grunted, finally stopping when he was quite a few yards above Rick. Rick could see him scanning the area from the higher vantage point, not being hindered by the rest of the trees surrounding them.

"How 'bout ya just be careful?"

Even with their height difference, Rick could hear the other man snort and mutter, "What, like you?"

Rick grinned and shook his head, purposefully keeping his eyes down so the other man wouldn't think anything of it otherwise. He wanted to sanctify the other man's privacy as much as possible, even from this angle. "'Do as I say, not as I do'?" he offered playfully, hearing the scrape of Daryl's boots as he started his descent down the tree. Rick took it upon himself to look back up at him to watch his trek down, ignoring the flush gnawing up his neck.

Thank god for beards.

"What happened to 'lead by example', officer?"

Daryl jumped the few feet left to the ground and landed in front of Rick, crouching into the impact smoothly. "Guess that went out the window with the rest of the world," he murmured as he brushed off some flakes of bark from Daryl's vest absentmindedly. He froze, watching Rick carefully, until Rick remembered how uncomfortable the other man became whenever anyone came too close and stopped. Rick was always a very tactile person and still had a hard time refraining from giving Daryl even the friendliest of touches. Everyone else in their group welcomed his affection except for their black sheep, and it bewildered Rick sometimes just how much that bothered him.

"Find what ya needed?" Rick coughed, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Yeah," Daryl nodded, still looking at Rick as he finished shaking off the bits of tree from his person. "If we gonna bag ourselves a tom, we best find ourselves a clearing."

Rick smiled, not even having the slightest clue how to find a turkey in the woods of rural Georgia, but knew this was Daryl's comfort zone. The man had been hunting his whole life and made it clear that this was his area of expertise, and Rick felt content enough to hand over the reigns for a while. The only turkey hunting he had experience with was driving down to the local supermarket every year and bagging himself a frozen one.

The two crept northwards, Rick following Daryl's lead and trying his damndest not to make too much noise. The last thing he wanted to do was ruin the zealous mood Daryl was in and happily settled in the backseat of their operation. Daryl stopped every so often to kneel down and examine God knows what, changing their course when he rose again, and it was all Rick could do to not constantly badger the hunter with his curiosity. It made the trek rather slow going, and Rick eventually started leaning over Daryl whenever the man was stooped down, trying to see whatever evidence Daryl saw in the viridity. The first few times it happened, Daryl would tense at the proximity but otherwise ignore him. Eventually, though, the man started to grow restless and unhinged and when Rick angled himself over him this time, Daryl jerked upright and eyed him suspiciously.

"What?" he snapped.

Rick threw his hands up. "It's nothin'. I… Sorry."

Daryl gave him a hard look before turning away and leaning back down to the tree trunk he was previously crouched at. Rick stood back, thumbing his belt loops passively while he tried to give the man some space and looked everywhere but him. Daryl stayed crouched at that spot for far longer than he had with the others and Rick wondered idly if it was something he did to disrupt the hunter.

A heavy sigh and a soft whistle caught Rick's attention, drawing his gaze to Daryl's hunched back. Without looking back at him, Daryl raised a thick finger and waved it for Rick to come over. Even at his summon, when Rick approached him from behind, he saw Daryl stiffen.

Meeting Rick's eyes, Daryl nodded down to the trunk, gesturing for Rick to squat down next to him. "C'mere. Hell if we're gonna find anything if ya don't know how ta track."

Rick could hardly hide his smile or eagerness as he crouched next to Daryl. He pretended not to notice Daryl flinching away when their knees bumped together, far too enveloped in his hunting lesson to be bothered by it. Daryl gave him a sidelong glance before turning to point towards the trunk they were crouched in front of. Bits and pieces were chipped away from the base of it, creating a rough V-shape in the bark.

"See that?" Daryl asked, fingering the rough edges of it. "S' how toms sharpen their beaks. This area o' Georgia turns inta breeding ground this time'a year. Ya can see their tracks all over."

Daryl brushed away some fallen leaves and pointed to various indents in the soil, four pronged prints littering the ground which he eyed greedily.

"Some are pretty deep, too. Hoss looks like he's been eatin' good for the winter," he smirked, clearly excited by his find. Rick, however, was at a loss of how to distinguish one 'sign' from another and felt his appreciation for the other man expanding within him.

A short, breathy laugh escaped Rick's mouth as he shook his head incredulously. "Can't say I see much of anything."

"Ya learn to see the signs," he shrugged back, feigning nonchalance while chewing his bottom lip. "When yer forced ta live out here. See, these prints're too big to be quail 'n they ain't shaped like geese or nothin'. O'er there," Daryl pointed to some long grass off a ways with dark plumes stuck in it. "Ya have some tom feathers. Ya can tell 'cause hens ain't got feathers that long or dark, 'n the females don't mark up trees like this."

Rick smiled, watching Daryl more than his surroundings. This was by far the most talkative the other man had been around him in a long time, so Rick was trying to absorb what he could of the moment. He made sure to keep away from his personal space in fear of ruining the moment

"Why's that?" Rick encouraged.

Daryl paused, keeping his eyes down away from Rick's probing ones and swallowed thickly before answering.

"Dominance."

A silence settled over the two, nearly meaningful, and Rick hardly knew how to respond while Daryl sat on his heels, the conversational mood clearly deflated. Rick couldn't help the nagging feeling that this was somehow his fault and felt a twinge of guilt for whatever he did to put off Daryl, who abruptly stood next to him.

"So, uh…" Daryl placed one hand on his hip and chewed at the callous around his thumb on his other hand, looking down at Rick subtly. "S' pretty easy to tell the difference 'tween hog, wolf, 'n walker tracks. Ya know…"

Their lesson was clearly coming to an end.

Daryl cleared his throat and watched Rick stand next to him out of the corner of his eye. Rick smiled softly at the man, appreciating his attempt at breaking the awkward silence, and clapped him on the shoulder amiably. "Thanks, man," Rick nodded, watching Daryl fidget from the contact. "I mean it."

The hunter nodded and grunted roughly in return before heading off towards the opening he had mentioned seeing from the treetops.

* * *

><p>It was now midday, the sun moving along the sky, as Rick gazed out into a grassy clearing out in the forest where Daryl insisted they'd find some prey. Disappointment filled his bones when he saw the field empty save for tufts of feathers, practically mocking them. To his right knelt Daryl poised and ready, peering down his scope into the opening. His expression was composed and serious, no trace of the defeat Rick felt.<p>

They sat that way for endless minutes with Rick waiting patiently and Daryl wound taut with poise. The silence was deafening and just when Rick was about to nudge the other man, he lowered his crossbow and raised his hands his face. His giant palms were wrapped left over right, creating a hollow cavern inside of them, and his thumbs were clamped together over the space in his hands. Daryl pressed his cupped hands to his lips and blew. The sharp sound that came from his hands startled Rick nearly half to death.

_Koo, koo. Kooooo._

Rick slapped a hand over Daryl's, trying to stop him from making such a shrill noise. His whisper was harsh towards the other man. "You trying to scare everything a mile away?"

Daryl, expectedly, froze and gave Rick a sharp look."S' a mating call."

"A _what?_"

Shaking his hand off, Daryl looked away self-consciously, face flushed. "A mating call," he stated more firmly, as if he was daring Rick to laugh. "Them birdbrains don't know the difference. Draws 'em out, ya know?"

Clumsily, Rick tried assembling his hands how he saw Daryl do so but was at a loss. "Will you show me how?"

Daryl's head whipped around so fast his hair flew across his face, eyes narrow and suspicious at searching Rick's face. He left himself open, genuinely curious, and let himself be scrutinized. After a moment, Daryl nodded once and raised his hands together, replicating his bird call and waiting for Rick to poorly mimic him, before touching his thin lips to his thumbs as a sort of makeshift mouthpiece.

Rick watched him closely and blew, frowning when nothing happened. He tried again and once more after that, to no avail. Daryl cracked a crooked smile and held out his precious crossbow to Rick, who stared at him with wide eyes.

"Ya can't call fer shit. Lessee how ya do with a real weapon."

The opaque metal was warm to the touch from Daryl's body heat as Rick gingerly took it into his hands. The weight was unfamiliar and oblong in his hands, both strikingly similar and glaringly unlike his Colt, and he tried his best to balance it in his inexperienced grip. He didn't fail to catch Daryl's smirk hidden behind his hand.

"You sure about this, Daryl?" he asked tentatively.

Daryl nodded. "Least I can do since yer helpin' me out 'n all…" the soft, timorous cadence had bled back into his voice and struck that peculiar chord somewhere in Rick's chest, thundering and unignorable. Rick opened his mouth, wanting to say anything to his companion to soothe that tremor in his voice, when Daryl made the hen call again. It filled up the glade with the sharp sound and Rick snapped his mouth shut, moment lost.

The sun was nearing somewhere around four pm and Rick started to wonder if they were going to leave empty handed when they finally heard a gobbling coming from across the clearing. Rick and Daryl tensed, a jolt of excitement running between the two as they watched a large, plump turkey clucking and strutting from the tall grass.

"There he is," Daryl muttered, eyes locked on the noisy bird. "You ready ta use that?"

Rick exhaled and shot Daryl a confident smile. "Ready as ever."

"Ya wanna aim between hoss' head 'n body," he noted, handing Rick an arrow to load. Rick did so under Daryl's instruction, heart pounding for a reason he couldn't place. This whole situation had his adrenaline surging in his veins, making him feel like some trainee from back in the day taking his first shot.

The rookie trying to get his first bullseye.

The greenhorn hellbent on impressing his captain, his deputy, his girlfriend with steady hands and an ace shot.

When had he turned into that man again? That drive had been buried with the uniform, entombed with his wife he had thought, yet it had somehow wormed its way into his impulse again without him realizing. Rick trained his sights on his crowing target with both eyes open, holding the crossbow up like Daryl showed him, before pulling the weighted trigger.


	6. Marksmanship

.:Marksmanship:.

Pain, reflux, and a sharp curse filled Rick's senses as his arms jerked from the recoil of the expended bow. An estranged embarrassment overcame the hot pain spasming in his trigger hand as he and Daryl watched the turkey flounder away, shrieking and squawking.

"Think ya nicked it, at least," Daryl said with an amused chime.

Rick was too busy inspecting his hand to notice where the turkey had gone. From the bottom knuckle of his thumb to the start of his forefinger was a long, welting gash just starting to leak red down his wrist. "Nicked myself, too."

Daryl turned to him and cursed when he saw the laceration, yawning all blood and frayed skin. It wasn't deep, but it hurt like a _bitch_, Rick noted. The hunter produced a bandana from his back pocket and gestured for the other man's hand, who gave it to him without a second thought. Rick watched Daryl work, first wiping away the blood trailing down to his jutting wrist bone, then dabbing at the crimson pooling in the wound. He grabbed the canteen from his hip and uncapped it, and when Rick saw he steeled himself for the harsh bite of alcohol but was surprised when he was met with the cool kiss of water pouring through his skin.

With unexpectedly delicate fingers, Daryl tended to Rick's cut with the sheer grace of a highly seasoned sufferer. Rick wondered at the man's ability to pamper and doctor injuries - it was likely that the gash would have gone unattended until it either scabbed over or became infected if it was just up to Rick's medical expertise. He felt yet another surge of appreciation for the other man that he couldn't quite express.

After Daryl tied the meticulous knot to finish his equally meticulous work, Rick drew his hand back and offered a nod and a, "Thanks."

Daryl shrugged off his gratitude, as Rick knew he would, and reattached his canteen to his hip. He stood up and strode into the clearing with Rick following suit, knees popping embarrassingly when he rose. The older man still had a tight grip on the crossbow with his left hand, lugging it around awkwardly and feeling the smouldering effects of his failed shot. Daryl grabbed and tested the arrow for any fractures while Rick cradled his right hand.

"And sorry," he motioned towards where the bird had scampered off. "For that."

Again, Daryl shrugged as he knelt and analyzed the frazzled grass. "S'all good. Ya clipped 'em well 'nough; sucker can't get very far."

Rick smiled half-heartedly at him and trailed after him when he started tracking into the forest again. This time Rick left Daryl alone to do his work, stewing in his failure, and was taken aback when the other man started talking to him first in the midst of his investigation.

"Same thing happened ta me my first time," Daryl spoke, touching a strand of grass painted red. "Didn't keep my hand low 'nough on the trigger and the retention spring got me."

Looking over his shoulder, Daryl drew his right hand up for Rick to see. His hand was rough and wide and a long, silvery scar puckered the skin between his thumb and forefinger, same as Rick's. It was thin, withered from many years passed, but was visible against the tan of Daryl's skin and seeing it plastered a crooked smile onto Rick's face.

"Piece o' shit nearly took my thumb clean off," Daryl snorted humourously.

Rick laughed and felt oddly connected to the man, as if he had just passed some initiation rite and was now part of the two-man crew, their little secret from the rest of the group, the rest of the world. He found that he quite liked that idea, actually. It might have been comforting if it hadn't been so damn uncomfortable.

"Maybe we should start a club," Rick joked.

Daryl snorted, stepping through the foliage with quiet steps. "Don't see Carol 'r Hershel 'r no-one signing up any time soon."

"Fine by me," shrugged Rick, trying to keep his voice light despite the gravity he felt in the words. Rick had always enjoyed Daryl's presence, though it was usually adulterated with Shane or Lori or _someone's_ judgmental shadow before. Now that it was just the two of them, it was unbelievable to Rick how well they seemed to mesh - there was no endless stream of questioning like there was with Shane, or constant insistence that he speak like there was with Lori. There was no nagging feeling that he wasn't a good enough father, husband, leader, human. With Daryl by his side, Rick was astonished to learn what it felt like to be himself again.

He only hoped Daryl hadn't taken him as seriously as he had meant it and refused to look at him for any kind of clarification. Silence stretched between the two men, Rick catching Daryl watching him out of his peripheral vision, when Daryl stopped him with a raise of his palm and nodded towards a small opening in the trees before them.

There, just a few yards away, was the turkey in a far worse condition than earlier. Feathers dangled from it's left leg which was awkwardly splayed out, splintered and fragmented from Rick's poor shot. He pitied the thing, really.

"Here," Daryl held out the arrow to him, which was quickly loaded. "Round two."

"Second time's the charm?"

Rick exhaled nervously, not wanting to botch the shot again. This was his chance to redeem himself, and God help him if he screwed up for the second time in a row. For sure, there was no way the younger man would let Rick live it down if he mutilated the wild turkey again with a miss. He swallowed, setting his feet apart to sturdy himself, and raised the crossbow to his line of sight.

The bird clucked and swayed piteously, propping itself up against a tree dismally. Rick could feel himself also swaying and gritted his teeth to brace himself, shoulders tight and arms stiff.

He nearly shot the arrow out of pure surprise when he felt a warmth up against his back, matching his posture and buttressing his form. Butterfly touches grazing up his arms to his hands nearly stopped his heart entirely, blood turning to ice and head becoming light. His chest was constricting and exploding all at once at the unconventional proximity, suffocating so pleasantly that Rick began to see stars, asphyxiating from something terrified and wild inside of him. He wasn't getting any air, it seemed, and he didn't want to do anything to stop it.

"Breathe," the gravelly voice in his ear whispered, hot breath caressing his neck and jolting life into him violently.

Rick's heart rate jumped to his eardrums, returning to him thunderously adventitious, almost as distracting as the gentle rise and fall of a broad chest against his shoulder blades. As suddenly as he had turned to ice, Rick was now hot all over; his neck was burning, his arms had trails scorched into the entire length of them from ghostly fingertips, his heart was ignited in something, _something, _desperate to be felt, painfully, welcomingly.

Daryl's calloused hands were now at Rick's, hesitantly covering them with his own, and Rick could just barely feel the frenzied hammering within the chest at his back. He wanted, restrained, agonized over pressing against the firm body cocooning him from behind, starving for _something, _nearly biting through his tongue to keep himself in check. He had no capacity to feel worried about the state he was in, no room in his feverish heart to wonder at this suffocating susceptibility, just these hands, this breath, this man -

There was a gentle stroking at his bandaged injury which caused him to flutter his heavy lids, pain mixing in with the frenetic tingling, and the fingers guided his to the trigger. Rick swallowed, trying to right himself, to steady his shaking hands, but felt his chest lurch at the sight of Daryl's scar resting just on top of his bandana.

This man was unbelievable.

Rick could feel Daryl changing his position for him, moving Rick's arms with his own, nudging Rick's hips straighter with his own, and Rick felt a jolt of that _something _all over. He shoved the nameless affect far into his fiery heart and took a deep breath, trying to ignore the light touches coating his normally neglected body, focusing what little attention he had left on the broken poultry in front of him.

Daryl's trigger hand covered Rick's protectively from the string's whiplash and together, they pulled the trigger. The recoil was minimal this time, just barely sending Rick back into Daryl, and there was no flash of pain in his hand. Rick could hardly hear the _twang _of the release and the _thud_ of the arrow over his own adrenaline, but the body against his didn't linger for long after that.

The warmth left him with only the tingling memory of the man's company as Daryl walked off towards their kill. "You were right," he said, keeping his back to Rick as he yanked out the arrow. "Guess the second time's the charm."

Heart still thudding painfully, Rick couldn't even bring himself to smile. In the few moments it took for Daryl to come up behind him and conduct him to the proper form, he could feel himself unraveling at his core. Just what the hell was that? His body had been pretty depraved of any kind of human touch the past few months, but that reaction to Daryl wasn't exactly settling or even called for. The man was his best friend, for Christ's sake.

And a _man, _he added in, almost as an afterthought.

Rick fidgeted with the crossbow, which now felt like melting chocolate in his sweaty palms, before deciding to approach Daryl. The man stiffened at his approach, clearly unwelcome, and kept his back facing him. Without a word, the hunter sat down cross legged and pulled the limp turkey into his lap and began defeathering it, yanking out plumes by the handful and filling the air with them.

Silently, Rick watched him, not quite knowing what to say. He felt cold, empty almost, and the air was filled with a sickening lull. And feathers, everywhere, of all shades brown and white. Suppressing a shiver, Rick wondered absently whether the cold was from the setting sun or the lack of Daryl's touch and looked up at the sky to check their time of day.

"It's getting late," he muttered. Daryl didn't look up, didn't say anything, just aggressively plucked at the feathers. Rick sighed and crouched down in front of him. "Daryl, we gotta get goin' soon. The others'll start to worry." There was an almost guilty ring to his voice, and Rick couldn't place why. Daryl still wouldn't look at him, the turkey very nearly naked now, goosebump skin all pale and pimpled.

"Ain't my fault yer a shit shot," he grunted disdainfully. Rick frowned at the resurfacing of his attitude, tucking his head to try and meet his gaze, but the man wouldn't look at him.

"Daryl," Rick mitigated soothingly. This sure as hell wasn't the time for Daryl to close off to him again, and Rick wanted to get his foot in the door of his companion's walls before he sealed himself away. At the sound of his name, Daryl glanced up at him, gaze held for a moment by Rick's open face.

In that look was a moment of tranquility between the two, Daryl's scowl softening, his riled hands stilling, and Rick heartstrings sore from the constant strain.

Rick was going to say something, an apology, an explanation, but words were lost to him. All he could focus on was the somber look on the man's face and the awry feather dangling in his hair. Before he could think to do otherwise, Rick reached up automatically and let his fingers stroke through Daryl's hair to seize the lost plumage, running his knuckles down the man's locks as he extracted the feather. He took note of how silky his hair felt to the touch, still freshly washed from his shower that morning and not yet tangled and grimey from the sweat of the day.

Slowly, sheepishly, Rick held the feather out to Daryl as if it gave some explanation for his actions, never breaking eye contact. Neither did Daryl look away as he awkwardly took it from him, thin mouth parted slightly in some emotion Rick had never seen on his face before.

Confusion.

Hope.

Fear.

_Something._

Rick cleared his throat, ready to say something, when they simultaneously heard rumbling from outside the clearing they were in. Both of them stiffened at once, heads swinging round in all directions, as that was the nature of the sound. Wheezing and snarling accompanied the rustling in the trees and the men were on their feet at once. Rick's heart sunk as he saw the first walker stumble forth from the brush.


	7. Lifeline

.:Lifeline:.

"_Shit!"_

They both cursed and turned back to back to face the oncoming corpses, waxen arms outstretched and hungry towards the whirling duo. Rick yanked off his jacket and tossed it to Daryl, who quickly made a makeshift body bag out of it for the turkey, while Rick charged at his first approaching walker with the crossbow, meleeing her to the ground and stomping her face in. Daryl kicked the next walker to the ground after her, and tugged Rick's sleeve when he spotted an opening.

Dozens of walkers were now gimping towards them from numerous directions and with a mutual nod exchanged, the men made a break for it, barreling over any walker to get between them and survival.

Rick's head was swimming, the levity felt moments ago annihilated by the sudden appearance of danger, and tried to focus on their next course of action. He had to swallow the shame of momentarily forgetting the world around them and the constant threat of death, following them everywhere like a bloodhound. It was stupid to get so distracted, whatever the reason, and made for an unfit leader, he reprimanded.

Now, they were running for their lives. Did they have any right to have stopped in the first place?

Groaning, bellowing, all around them walkers were desperate for their meal and kept forcing the two men off course. Not that Rick had any sense of what direction they were headed, he just dodged one after the other, swinging Daryl's crossbow at this or that. The other man, without his weapon of choice, dexterously found his hunting knife to the temples of impeding walkers and threw them aside like ragdolls.

"This way!" Daryl directed breathlessly.

Not in any place to question, Rick nodded and followed him, heart rate spiking when a stout walker came towards them with his fat belly flayed open and rotting entrails dangling to his knees. Rick fumbled for an arrow knocked in the quiver attached to the bow and loaded it as quickly as he could, lifting the sights to his eyes and bearing in mind to keep his hand lowered on the trigger. Exhaling, mimicking his stance from earlier as best as he could without Daryl's guidance, Rick pulled the trigger and embedded an arrow into the girthy walker's head. It jerked back, likely snapping its neck from the sheer velocity of the arrow to boot, and collapsed in front of the men.

"When did ya learn ta shoot?" Daryl smirked as Rick handed him his beloved crossbow back.

Christ, did this man only know playful banter when their lives were on the line? "Had a good teacher, I guess," Rick responded, reaching down to tug at the arrow. It wouldn't come loose, instead yanking the walker's fat head up in resistance like a bobble head with a broken neck and an appetite for human flesh.

At Rick's hunched back was a loud gurgle as he struggled to work the bolt from the bone it was housed in and before he could turn around, Daryl threw himself to the source. Snarling, the hunter drove his knife into the sneaking walker's temple and tossed it back limply, then turning his snarl on Rick who was still struggling with the arrow and his boot on the walker's chin.

"Leave it."

Rick protested, insisting that he could feel the bone beginning to give. "I got it."

Suddenly, two more walkers followed suit after their cadaverous kin, and Daryl grabbed Rick's shoulder. All playfulness had left his face. "It's snagged. Leave it." This time, Rick nodded and let go, trailing after Daryl as he led them through the trees to an assumed safety.

"Saw this earlier when I was lookin' fer a clearing," Daryl said, voice gruff with the exertion of self-preservation. Or Rick-preservation, he noted sheepishly.

Rick looked at the road splayed out in front of them, a freeway stretching due north and south, and at the lone car tilted on the side of the other of them. It was a dodge neon, rusted and ravished, but with doors and windows. The gurgling of the horde behind them was persistent and Rick would have been impressed if he wasn't so downright exhausted from fight and flight - they had fled for over a mile and had slain over half a dozen walkers, easily.

"Christ," he breathed, filling his lungs the best he could, "Yer a lifesaver, man."

Daryl snorted and headed towards the car. "Wait until after I save yer ass ta say that."

The two men practically sprinted to the car, praying they wouldn't have to pick a lock or break a window with half a hundred corpses on their tail. Daryl tested the handle and Rick's heart heaved when it clicked open, stunned by the shift of luck. Wasting no time, Daryl threw open the creaking door and tossed in the turkey, still wrapped in Rick's ruined jacket, and climbed in. Rick practically lunged in after him, slamming the door behind him and locking it while Daryl locked the other doors.

Not even seconds later, they saw the first walker emerge from where they had been just sickening moments ago. There was a shuffling next to him and Rick turned to see Daryl tearing off his poncho, leaving just his winged vest and undershirt beneath. Before Rick even had time to wonder at his actions, Daryl threw it over the two of them, cloaking them in the rough fabric and earthy smell, and gathered next to him.

Their breathing was heavy and tension filled what little space was left between them, nerves alight with the weight of the situation. They both drew their legs up and under their wool shield, unable to keep their knees from brushing together, and waited for impending bedlam.

The first bump against the car was hardly noticeable but was enough for the two men to suck in their breathes, staring at each other with wide eyes. With bated breaths, they both reached for their knives and drew them slowly as the groaning came alarming close to the back of Rick's head. Rick forced himself to stay still as the screech of something heavy smearing on a pane of glass shrilled in his ears, splitting his skull and knotting his stomach. He wanted so badly to cover his ears, close his eyes, run screaming from the car, but instead opted for fortify himself by staring at Daryl.

Daryl was watching him like a hawk with his hawk-like eyes, knife hand ready and tense when there was the clicking of what sounded like teeth on the window behind Rick. The confidence that blossomed in Rick at the sight was fleeting due to the wheezing nearly in his ear, but he clenched his jaw and waited eternities.

Decades, lifetimes later, Rick filled his lungs with relief when the clicking left them, sliding across the neon and stumbling past. He saw Daryl also exhale and relax his grip and the two men shared small, victorious smiles with each other at the departure of the body trying to bite through the car. The lull was short lived, and their smiles dropped when they heard more solid _thuds _press to the car.

Rick tightened his grip on his ocelot and tried to keep his horrified shiver from coming to fruition, swallowing down his fear and overwhelming desire to peek out over Daryl's poncho.

He knew what his eyes would be met with. He had seen firsthand the look of corpses trying to claw into a car, slowly tearing a vehicle apart to get at their prey if need be, and he had no reason to see it now and put the both of them in considerably more dire straits.

It was painfully obvious that Daryl's quick thinking was the only chance of salvation they had. Rick knew they were both apt at dispatching walkers, but Rick hadn't seen a horde this large gathering indepently since the farm and couldn't imagine putting the both of them at such a high risk with such a low probability of survival. Not if they both wanted to survive, and Rick couldn't fathom the idea of continuing on without Daryl - he had no idea how Shane managed to live with himself after sacrificing someone to the ravenous dead. No, staying hidden was their only means to live through this, the both of them.

The car was shaking with the pressure of bodies piling against it, and Rick had a horrible moment of worry that the mass of corpses would manage to tip the car over on it's already slanted perch.

His fight or flight reaction, already worn thin, had him tense and ready to flee once more before a rollover took place, but one look at Daryl had him rooted to the spot. Daryl's hand holding his knife was lax, blade out to the side, as he gestured down with his palm, signaling Rick to calm down, and his glowing blue eyes were firmly on his. Rick kept his eyes on Daryl's the entire time as the growling and garbling rose to a crescendo, rattling the car wildly with the chorus of raspy cries of hunger and desperation.

Eventually, the pressure on the car started to disperse, scraping past and continuing onwards past them. The two men remained huddled close, breathing still, eyes fierce, and hearts pounding. Rick could practically feel the resounding thumping of Daryl's heartbeat, betraying his outer calm for the frenzy inside.

The grating on the neon's body began to ease up, less and less pressure threatening to tip them over, and the terror gnawing at Rick's frayed nerves began to dissipate. Had they really manage to survive this walking horde of necrotic peril?

Unbelievable.

But soon enough, the noises were gone entirely, and something akin to ecstatic fervor flooded the areas of his brain previously occupied by sheer dread. Rick hung his head, feeling lifeless from the stress, and heaved a massive sigh of relief. His shoulders startled when he felt Daryl's head bow as well, resting against Rick's and dangling his long bangs around Rick's cheeks.

Rick froze, too tired, drained, and blissful to move and instead flicked his eyes to Daryl's cool ones. He was staring back into him, face soft and worn.

"Thank you," Rick whispered, his breath buffeting Daryl's face.

Daryl nodded, hair framing Rick's face delicately. Suddenly, Rick became acutely aware of how close they were beneath Daryl's poncho and how blazingly hot the air between them was. It was making it quite difficult to breathe, Rick's breaths coming in heated and shallow, and being this close to Daryl's face gave him enough insight to realize that the other man, too, struggled to breathe. Slowly, painfully slow, Rick drew back away from Daryl and dared to peek his head out from the fabric. Cooler air came rushing to him and the first thing, the only thing, he saw was smeared blood and spit and gristle garnishing the entire right exterior of the dodge neon in thick sheets.

He could hardly see out the windows, practically opaque with gore, but couldn't make out anymore remaining walkers as far as he could tell. Ease washed over him like a baptism and he could feel how tender his muscles were from straining for so long, clenching and unclenching his hands to relieve them.

"We're good," he informed Daryl, damn near giddly in his revelling.

There was no response, no movement at all, from the man still beneath his poncho and Rick looked down at his companion questioningly. There was no way he didn't hear him. Just in case, he nudged him and said his name.

"Daryl?"

When that elicited no response either, Rick grasped the hem of the poncho and drew it back to look at the man underneath worriedly. Daryl looked up at him, still huddled over as if there were some threat remaining in the vicinity, bunched up and vulnerable all over.

"Hey," Rick lowered his voice soothingly. "It's safe now."

Daryl scoffed at him, that usual scowl sinking right back into place on his lips apparently now that the danger had passed. "No shit." He threw the poncho off of him and stretched, a little sliver of stomach flashing above his jean waistband, and quickly sheathed his hunting knife. Moments later, without another word, Daryl clambered into the driver's seat and starting fiddling around.

"What're you doin'?" the older man asked, trying to peer over the seat to see what Daryl was up to.

He was silent for a moment, ignoring Rick while he shuffled through nooks and crannies of the car's interior, then eventually produced a set of keys dangling from a keychain. There was a decaying rabbit's foot - atrociously ironic, Rick mused - and a tiny picture of someone's family gathered together in their Sunday's finest, forced smiles and all. Rick grimaced and looked away from it, feeling that lead in his bones thickening at the sight of them. The last thing he needed at the moment was to start seeing his phantom wife walking around outside, or worse: sitting in the driver's seat.

"M' gettin' us the hell outta here," spoke Daryl roughly and stuck the car key into the ignition. Before Rick had the chance to protest, Daryl turned the key and was met with a lazy clicking from the engine. Frowning, Daryl tried the ignition a few more times before leaning back to glare at the ceiling of the interior.

"Shoulda known," he spat, closing his eyes. "Ain't never had no goddamn _dodge neon _do me any good."

Rick held back his laughter at their situation, how frustratingly volatile their luck had been just today, and climbed into the front passenger seat, careful not to disturb his partner. When he righted himself in the seat, he looked over to see Daryl watching him from his lounging position back against the headrest.

"Think this's for the best, anyway," Rick nodded towards the setting sun out the windshield, thankfully still relatively clean save for some bird crap and dirt.

Daryl's eyes narrowed at him. "Bein' stranded?"

"No," Rick said patiently, "Keeping that horde away from our family."

Daryl paused before he nodded and looked away and out of his window, giving Rick the feeling that the man was sulking and didn't really want to hear what was his companion had to say. It was just as frustrating, if not more so, how fickle Daryl's mood was when interacting with Rick. The man left Rick winded and swaying with his temperamental affections, first hot then cold, and Rick quite frankly didn't know how to appease or satisfy the hunter.

He had a faint inkling that he was missing something crucial from the big picture, but found himself too timid to ask. Any time he tried to bring it up and verbalize their situation, one look at Daryl sent his confidence spiraling. It was irritatingly uncharacteristic of him, but he couldn't pull himself together.

If he was going to be honest with himself, he was a godawful mess over this.

Rick had always had a soft spot for the younger man, and his best friend and wife had never failed to give him shit over it. _Ya wanna take that redneck as yer wingman, you be my guest, _Shane had sneered jeeringly. There was an insinuation there, somewhere, and he knew the rest of their group had heard it, but Rick was deaf to it at the time.

Even Lori had grown skeptical of their relationship, ironically enough. When Rick had first arrived on their camp and reunited with her, she nearly bit his head off with acidic envy when he left with Daryl to try and save Merle. From there, his normally loving and nurturing wife turned green in her passive aggression whenever Daryl was involved - the time they left the group in the woods looking for Sophia, the time Daryl was shot and Rick had to carry him to Hershel, all the times Rick so much as glanced at him for too long and Lori was in a spitting rage of cutting remarks.

Once it came out that she had been involved with Shane, Rick had the bittersweet luxury of getting to have a conversation with Daryl without her ripping into him. It was the only silver lining Rick could find in his wife's affair and he clung to it desperately, looking at and talking to Daryl whenever he wanted without reproach.

When it had meant Lori's relationship with Shane could have been anything but something horribly crushing, Rick adhered to it like a madman. He became practically attached to Daryl's hip, finding his outlet in the only thing good about his wife's straying. He could finally breathe around the man without having his wife hovering, as she no longer had the right. It felt vindictive to build something as intimate as what he had with Daryl, and Rick was not normally a vindictive man.

Looking back, Rick could see that was when their partnership had really started to blossom.

Not that it amounted to much lately. Whatever attunement the two had nurtured together the past year seemed to flounder into tender touches and cold shoulders. The acid in his veins was biting as he thought bitterly that Lori must be rolling in her grave. Metaphorically, anyway.

Rick turned on his side, completely wound up from _something_, and tried to settle in with the oncoming dark. He glanced up at Daryl's image reflected in his gruesome side window and cleared his throat.

"Which means we're gonna have to stay the night."


	8. Nostalgia

.:Nostalgia:.

It was now well into the night and Rick shifted in his seat uncomfortably, knowing how worried everyone back at the prison would be from his and Daryl's absence. It bothered him to think of doing that to Carl, but there was no way he was going to risk bringing that mass of walkers back to their doorstep unannounced. No, as cramped and as awkward as it was inside this Dodge Neon, Rick knew it was for the best. The two men could make their way back to the prison come morning, when the horde had hopefully stumbled miles away, and were in no danger of sabotaging their own camp.

Rick's eyes flicked up to his window, now a flat mirror from the dark mess made onto it by the walkers pressing their faces against it, and examined his companion.

Daryl was laying on his side, facing away from Rick, with the driver's seat reclined back as far as it could go and completely mimicked Rick's slanted position. The other man had been silent all night since the walker attack and Rick couldn't quite figure out what caused him to shut off so vehemently.

Thinking back to the rest of their day, Rick felt strangely disappointed by Daryl's current behavior. Daryl had specifically asked him to join in on today's hunt to find help in the Thanksgiving matter, a confidant to confess his lack of convivial experience to, and he really had opened up to Rick. Rick had been shocked to hear Daryl talk about his past, pushed to anger when he heard what life had been like for Daryl every year around this time. It really stirred something in Rick, some furious protectiveness for the other man and a damn near longing to treat Daryl to a Thanksgiving he deserved for once in his life.

After that moment of unguarded honesty from Daryl, they felt like comfortable friends to Rick, that trusting, sacred bond between them back and burning brighter than ever. Daryl didn't even mind Rick following him around like some puppy back in the forest, absorbing all of the information that he could, and Rick found that he was surprised at how patient and gentle of a teacher the other man made.

He was learning so much about the hunter, more than the difference between turkey and geese or how to attract a turkey as a mate, and Rick found himself craving more.

Daryl had even been so warmhearted as to let Rick use his precious crossbow, something he had never seen the man do before, and felt some kind of connection to him that he couldn't imagine with anyone else in the world. Quite frankly, Rick had never met another man like Daryl and couldn't imagine such a gratifying feeling just from learning more about someone coming from anyone else. Daryl was unique, in his behaviors, his looks, his touches -

Rick could have slapped himself.

The touching. The feather. The closeness. Was that Daryl's problem? Could that be what was setting him off and walling himself away so often today? Rick closed his eyes, embarrassment flooding his vision in waves of light behind his eyelids as he squeezed them shut. God, he was an idiot.

He was alienating the man. The poor guy couldn't even bear to stand hugs when they came his way, dodged slaps on the back and shrank away from outstretched hands like they were going to hurt somehow. It never left Rick with the best of feelings, but he had always tried to respect Daryl's personal space, which was both massive and dear to the younger man. He'd sometimes have to stop himself mid-reach or mid-grasp, such a innate and innocent manner of Rick's met with Daryl's rigid, impenetrable blockade.

And just what had he done today? Crossed the line somehow, the boundary of personal space shattered into a million uncomfortable pieces, never to be glued back together again quite the same way.

Was it the feather? Rick mused to himself. Daryl looked on the cusp of something, _something_, when Rick had unthinkably reached right into Daryl's cherished bubble to pluck the turkey feather from his hair with all the tact of a walker. Or was it… There was no way Daryl could have any idea of the reaction Rick's body had when he had touched him like that. But if he had, it could easily explain why Daryl was now giving him the cold shoulder. Rick kept his eyelids squeezed tight, mortified, at how badly he screwed up. If Daryl had any inkling of how thoroughly undone he had driven him, how Rick had been practically putty under those fingertips, he could see why Daryl would opt to give Rick the cold shoulder.

To be honest, Rick was surprised the other man hadn't run as far as he possibly could have from the situation, even if Rick's response had been completely involuntary and equally surprising to him.

How could he even begin to explain? And would Daryl even let him?

What would he even say in the first place?

_Oh, sorry about that, I haven't exactly been touched in a while. You know how it goes._

Rick nearly wanted to run as far as _he _possibly could in the first place. If he could manage it, he would rather not have to explain himself at all and just continue on as if nothing ever happened. Maybe that was a viable option, he ventured.

"Ya know, every year at Thanksgiving, it was always me who'd have to clean the damn turkey," dared Rick playfully, happy to at least break the silence. He looked at the reflection of Daryl's back hopefully, waiting for a response to come. Minutes passed, but Daryl remained silent. Rick felt dejection like a kick in the teeth but tried again, keeping his voice light.

"Lori tried the first year we were married," his smile tightened slightly, this being the first time he brought up his late wife on his own accord since her death. "But she wouldn't stop heaving. You'da thought she was dying."

Rick tried to laugh, but it sounded hollow even to him. He looked back up at Daryl, who was watching him through the reflection of his own window, and Rick felt a flutter of confidence at the look. "Lori just hated the thought of reaching inside 'n cleaning out all the guts 'n stuff. So every year I'd wind up elbow deep in turkey giblets, and every year she'd still give me shit for this 'n that. Seemed like Lori always found something ta chew me out for."

Chuckling heavily at the memories, Rick wasn't even looking at Daryl anymore, too lost in his nostalgia, and was surprised to hear the man's voice in response.

"Hard ta imagine you guttin' anything with how shit you are at huntin'," Daryl was smirking in his reflection.

Rick knit his eyebrows together in mock offense, happy for the feedback the other man was finally giving him. "Hey, I dug through that walker's intestines a year ago, didn't I?"

Daryl turned his head, hiding a smile in the crook of his arm and Rick let loose a genuine chuckle at the repugnant flashback of it all. Rick and Daryl had managed to take out a walker with unspoken teamwork, already oddly in tune with each other so long ago. Rick quite nobly picked through the contents of the corpse's stomach after Daryl did the dirty work of excoriating it open. Almost simultaneously, the two sobered up at the memory of why they had been out eviscerating walkers in the first place.

There was a moment of silence and tension seeped into the mood between them as Rick thought back to those days - the good old days, when he had a complete family there with his beloved deputy righthand-man to boot. Yet, despite the comfortable luxury of having so many loved ones alive and well, it wasn't his wife or his best friend he had been out with that day, combing the woods to hell and back for a little girl.

In fact, those invaluable faces of Lori and Shane were nowhere to be seen when it came to rescuing Sophia. Rick wallowed in his twenty twenty hindsight for a moment at how obvious it was who really supported him then when his own loved ones, his own family, wouldn't.

Rick's eyes found Daryl's reflection again, chest winding tight. This man would have stopped at nothing to save Sophia, quite literally risking his own life on a daily basis to try and locate a hint to her whereabouts, an indication of her survival, anything, while Shane combated Rick at every step and Lori was content to sit by and agree with Shane.

Idly, Rick thumbed at his wedding band still adhered to his left ring finger, twisting it over and over, and built up a second attempt at conversation. At this point, he had preferred their earlier silence to this solemn weight blanketing them at Sophia's memory and tried to smooth the tension over.

"One year, I just stopped."

The silence lingered for another minute, each man expecting the other to speak, but Daryl eventually glanced up at Rick's reflection and prompted, "Oh yeah?" He sounded grateful for the change of subject.

"Yeah," Rick continued, taking off his wedding ring and playing with it wistfully. "Just stopped. Decided to stay at the station late, 'n it just became a habit every year. I'd make an excuse not to go home, 'cause I knew I'd just get yelled at fer something or another. Least paperwork can't call you out in front of yer son."

The was a pregnant pause before Daryl said, "Betchya Lori didn't take too well ta that."

"Naw," he laughed flimsily and squeezed his ring in his palm. "She'd hold it over my head 'til Christmas. She was never very good at being alone. Year 'fore all this, she'd asked Shane to come gut the damn turkey for her."

"That's rough, man," Daryl was watching Rick play with the jewelry closely, eyes soft and compassionate. Rick couldn't keep looking at them for long.

"I…" Rick's voice shook slightly and he swallowed thickly before he continued. "I pushed her to him, Daryl. Can't even say I was surprised when I figured out what was going on between them while I was gone."

Daryl's eyes narrowed slightly and his voice had an edge to it. "Still was uncalled for, man. She was yer wife, and that best friend 'o yers screwed shit up for you two."

Rick's laugh was bitter this time, only vaguely catching on to Daryl defending him from his own self-hate. "We were pretty screwed up 'fore the shit hit the fan, when life was still normal. She even threatened filing for a divorce a few times 'fore this world went to hell."

The other man was silent, and his lack of a response only spurred Rick on in his mounting ire. "Get this, she even said it in front of Carl, once - tried to bring him into it."

"Hell no," Daryl spat, eyes alight with something ferocious and southern drawl more prevalent in his intensity. It took Rick by surprise just how genuinely angry Daryl seemed by that. "That's crossing a line, man."

"Yer preaching to the choir, man," Rick sighed and ran his empty hand through his hair, thinking absently how much Lori would have hated his longer locks, him spending the night with Daryl, everything. "We got married too young, you know? I tell ya, don't ever marry yer first girlfriend."

Rick was laughing again, clenching his wedding ring tightly. Daryl scoffed at him dryly. "Pfft. Had to've had one first."

As soon as the words had left him, Daryl snapped his mouth shut and buried his face back into the crook of his arm, retreating. Rick blinked, letting the words settle in for a moment, shock washing over him as he processed Daryl's sentence. He opened his mouth, closed it, and gaped again as he tried to find a way to broach that revenue, giving Daryl's reflection a questioning gaze.

Before Rick could think of what to say, Daryl jerked around in the seat abruptly to look at Rick with a sneer plastered to his face. "Why d'you still have that, anyway?"

The ring, Rick knew without even looking at Daryl. He held onto it tightly and brought his fist to his lips, brushing them with his knuckles absentmindedly while he thought about it. He knew full well that the other man was trying to change the subject and let him, not wanting to make the man feel ostracized or embarrassed. Rick would ponder on it later and consider bringing it up to Daryl at a later date, when the hunter was more willing to open up to him. After a minute, he finally answered, the other man growing more curious and strangely agitated.

Somberly, Rick spoke, "I think… fer the same reason I kept my badge n' uniform fer so long…" His voice was a gossamer ghost of the past, feeling the old tethers of a man he once was and the bridges he had yet to burn still haunting him. "A big part of me wanted to cling to the man I used to be. A man with a wife, a home and a job."

His voice was a frail whisper, not even meant to have crossed his lips in the first place. "A good man."

Daryl, still propped up on an elbow to look at Rick's back, hesitantly reached over and, finger by tentative finger, placed his hand on the shoulder Rick wasn't laying on. He squeezed lightly, only felt by Rick because of his newly developed hypersensitivity towards the man, and spoke firmly.

"You are a good man, Rick."

A shudder ran down Rick's spine, feeling completely naked and exposed under Daryl's scrutiny. He was winded, numb save for the heavy palm at his shoulder, and was almost afraid to look up, afraid to turn over, afraid to surrender to the emotional upheaval threatening to break him. This fragile feeling was foreign to him and he nearly hated it but was too busy indulging in it.

Rick swallowed hard, trying to keep a handle on the heart rending affect of Daryl's words, utterly moved to pieces and trying not to show it.

"Been a long time since I was called that," Rick said, hating how fragile he sounded. Emotional wasn't a light he wanted to be seen in. But the last time he heard someone even remotely calling him a good man was Hershel when they stayed on the farm last year. Rick couldn't remember the last time he heard those words before then.

Daryl's voice had a touch of his earlier rednick bite to it when he spoke. "Well, that's a damn sin."

Moments passed with Rick drowning in his sentiment before he said suddenly, "You are, too, Daryl." He looked up in the window at Daryl whose face fluttered with shock before turning into a confused scowl.

"A sin?"

Rick rolled onto his back in the passenger seat to look at Daryl for real and their blue eyes met with one another, leaving Rick breathless. He didn't know why, but Daryl needed to know this and the urgency to tell him was all consuming, as if not saying these words would be something immoral, regrettable, remembered for the rest of Rick's life.

"A good man."

Daryl's eyes widened at him, searching for some deceit in Rick's words as if waiting for the other shoe to drop was a reflex done his whole life. A small, delicate smile danced on Daryl's lips when he found nothing but sincerity in Rick's face and he shook his hair over his features to hide them. Rick discovered a desperate urge within him to move Daryl's hair out of his face, wanting to see firsthand what a happy, flattered Daryl looked like. He was near desperate to know what it looked like when Daryl believed himself to be as good a man as any Rick had ever met, but he stilled his hand. The previous time Rick had carded through Daryl's hair, the other man had grown distant from him and that was considerably the last thing Rick wanted in this saccharine moment.

Visibly embarrassed, Daryl shifted so that he was on his back as well, staring up to the roof of the Dodge with his arms folded behind his head.

"Thanks, Rick."

His words were simple, but his tone left Rick quite proud of himself for a reason he couldn't place. It was silly how drunk he felt simply off of Daryl's happiness, and the fact that it was him who made him feel this way, obviously something new to Daryl, gave Rick a loopy grin. "Anytime, man."

The two fell back into silence, this time a more comforting peace between them. Rick looked at his wedding ring, still in the palm of his hand, and briefly considered what to do with it from here. He felt some conflict rising up in him, something he wasn't ready to deal with just yet in the serene, triumphal calm washing over him. He returned his band to his finger and opted to leave the problem of what to do with it for later in favor of basking in his humming companion's pleasure.

Rick couldn't tell how much time had passed with the two of them resting in their happy respite, but eventually the chill of the night had crept into their car, diluting the blissful body heat the two had filled it with. Still smiling, Rick found himself beginning to shiver as his warmth was sucked from him by the encroaching winter night.

He caught Daryl looked over at him, arms still behind his head and lounging back in his seat, before the man propped himself up again and reached into the backseat of the car. For a moment, Rick thought that Daryl was reaching for the turkey for some wild reason and was surprised when Daryl pulled his discarded poncho into the front of the car.

"Here," he said, tossing it at Rick.

Daryl looked away from Rick's questioning gaze and stared pointedly at the ceiling again. Rick pulled the poncho open, looking from it to the owner of it, waiting for some explanation.

"Can't sleep with ya shivering like that," Daryl shrugged roughly as if that settled the matter.

Rick smiled, understanding the kindness in Daryl's gesture despite the crass tone of voice, and spread the poncho out to the best of its length. Scooting to the edge of the passenger seat, Rick tossed part of it over Daryl, haphazardly covering them both in the thick yarn. Daryl jerked his head over to look at Rick with wondering eyes before inching closer to the edge of his seat as well to settle in under the poncho with Rick.

The two men squirmed a little, bits and pieces of them going uncovered by the wool of their makeshift blanket, but neither seemed to mind, just content in each other's company as they drifted off to sleep.


	9. Exodus

.:Exodus:.

Lori's smile was infectious, wide and beautiful against her face. Her hair was lustrous and clean, cheeks filled and pallor radiant, and the look about her was healthy once more. Rick was smiling back and it hurt, hurt so bad somewhere within him. He was shredding apart, bloody and happy and hurting so badly and it was all he could do to smile back at her.

"Welcome home, baby," her voice was warm and his stomach churned, veins thick with the remembrance of a time when he enjoyed that nickname.

"Hey," he breathed, tears in his eyes and pain in his gut.

She came towards him, wiry arms wrapping around his neck and kissing his cheek like a memoir of their early years. Rick soaked in it, letting the tears fall from his eyes and choking back the hurt in his heart. He held her there for lifetimes and when he finally looked up, he was met with the sight of Carl sitting at the dinner table smiling at him and Judith next to him, squirming in her baby seat.

"Hey, dad," Carl was grinning, freckled face clean and free from the atrocities of their life. His sheriff's hat was nowhere to be found, but Rick couldn't even begin to care as he drew away from his beaming wife and stepped to his son.

"My God," he whispered, tears flowing freely. For Christ's sake, he was being consumed by this strange suffering inside him. It was threatening to kill him, nearly. "Carl… My boy. And my baby girl." He placed his hands on his children respectively, squeezing them and loving him with everything he could muster.

Lori came up behind him, her thin frame wrapping behind him and her chin on his shoulder as she watched on lovingly. "Happy Thanksgiving, baby."

She hummed happily, nuzzling his neck, and his kids were all smiles and love.

"Happy Thanksgiving, dad."

He was breathless now and didn't understand why his family couldn't see just how much he was dying - he couldn't even ask, beg them for help anymore, just suffer in silence. Wasn't it obvious? Why did it their touches hurt so much, their words rip into him so ruthlessly?

Lori looked straight through his misery and patted him on the shoulder instead, saying, "Why don't you go get the turkey, hon'? Carl 'n I will set the table."

Rick nodded, ungluing himself from the spot and heading towards the kitchen in their rustic house, still suffocating silently. He could feel all eyes on him as he entered the archway of their kitchen and headed straight for the oven, not even stopping to equip himself with a pair of oven mitts. There was a foreboding feeling in Rick's bones, this life too normal, and he didn't fail to notice that the 350 degree turkey felt like air to him when he seized it from the scalding oven. Closing the door of the oven with his knee, Rick placed the turkey on the stovetop and caught a glimpse of a familiar face staring back at him in their tile.

_Shane?_

Throat tight, heart bleeding, Rick looked away from the silly image, trying to quell the roaring pain within him with deep breathes.

"Love?"

Lori was in the doorway and Rick looked up at her, feeling oddly caged and misplaced. His gut was wrenching in his turmoil and he forced a smile to his face, replying, "Yeah?"

"You okay?" she wondered, eyeing him worriedly. "We've been waiting."

Rick stuttered, looking from the tile countertop and back to her. "Y-yeah, darlin'. Sorry 'bout that, it'll be right out."

She smiled and turned back around to leave him with the now carved and dressed turkey. With shaking hands, Rick grabbed the tin dish with the poultry still simmering in its own juices and walked out to the dining room, stopping in the doorway. His own family, his precious loved ones, were sitting around the hard oak table and smiling up at him, beckoning him to join them.

Lori's smile was delicate and petite, and Rick couldn't even begin to prepare for her next words.

"I love you."

Her blindsiding words flowed like honey over him and that pain was now stabbing, world-consuming, infecting his open wounds and stinging him with her cloying love. His heart shuddered, not thinking he'd ever hear those words again, much less believe them, but he almost gave in to her and the sweet, sweet pain. It was all he knew, all he could remember ever feeling in his life, and it was killing him slowly, benevolently.

Something about this felt too good to be true, too good to be right. Their holidays were never like this, never quiet and loving and thankful. Oftentimes, the two would put on a farce, a facade of happiness and camaraderie for Carl's sake, trying to make their rough elbowing past each other in the kitchen appear to be nothing more than love taps. Rick would nudge her gently out of the way, Lori would huff in her agitation and shoulder past him. He would clear his throat, she would make some offhand comment about their overly-large kitchen being too small for the both of them. He would say this, she would say that. Step here, turn there, now dip.

They had become proficient in this dance of passive aggression, twirling in their anger and discontent at one another, smiling in front of Carl to display their hollowed affections. They would bow once the show was over with Carl tucked in and head offstage to their respective beds, worn and weary from their daily spectacle.

That had been life for them the last Rick could remember, and this life had been his fantasy for so long. Passionate and welcoming, warm with understanding, unconditional love overflowing from their hearts. It was all Rick had ever wanted from someone and though they could never have it before, maybe, just maybe, they could just stay in this heaven and indulge in it.

Rick let himself give in.

"I…" His throat was filled with that bloody honey, sugary and sweet, and his tears tasted bitter in his mouth in contrast. With what little breath he had left, Rick managed to choke out past his tears, "I love you, too."

His hands were trembling and his heart was stuck in his molasses throat, eyes stinging sharply as his eyes glimpsed into a mirror on the wall opposite him. He lifted his gaze from Lori's smiling face, Carl's twinkling eyes, Judith's happy babbling, towards the mirror in the center of the wall. A bile churned in his stomach and his head was light, dazed, as he peered into the dark eyes of his deputy.

"Shane, baby?" Lori spoke, eyeing him with that sickeningly beautiful worry. "You look pale. Do you need to sit down?"

"Alright, dad?" Carl questioned innocently at him. Breathless, staggered, dead, Rick felt himself perishing in that moment, more painful and gruesome than any walker end. He felt the turkey plate slip from his numb hands, the pain so real he knew this had to be some hell he had transcended to, and felt a furious, thundering rage fill his bones.

Heartbroken, Rick tore through the room with a snarl, ripping the mirror from its hooks and hurling it to the wall. There were gasps around the table, a startled, "Shane!" and Rick turned around the room, crumbling at the sight of the their family pictures - _his _family pictures - framed on the wall. The day Carl was born, their last Christmas picture, him and Lori only it wasn't. Rick wasn't in any of these pictures.

Shane.

"_You don't think I would'a done whatever it took to keep Carl safe?"_

"_Nah, man. I know ya wouldn't have."_

His trusted deputy smiled from beneath the glass, staring back at him with coy and knowing eyes and had his arms around Lori and Carl. They were sitting at a wing joint, Rick's favorite go-to place, and looked so happy together. Rick felt a fire in his bones, that feeling of betrayal settling in like an old friend.

Shane.

"_I'm the one who makes the calls 'round here, Shane."_

"_Yeah? You come back here 'n you just destroy everything. Look around you."_

Rick was trembling with barely controlled rage, nauseated from a feeling he hadn't felt since Shane had last threatened his family. This man was someone Rick had given his heart to, inseparable since childhood, and had been worked into every faceted of Rick's life, only to completely replace him in the end.

Shane!

"_That is MY wife, MY son, and MY unborn baby."_

"_That really what you think? Is that what THEY think?"_

There were the panicked screams of his family at Rick's fit of agony. Rick was going to be sick, quickly yanking down the foreign family pictures, mocking him. He was bent and shaking, unwilling to turn to face his, HIS family, scared of what they'd see in him. Shane? A monster? A weakling who couldn't protect them?

What was even left to see in him, anyway?

"Rick?"

Rick's heart exploded at his name, stars glinting in his eyes at the owner of the voice. He turned, slowly, ashamed of how hopeful he was, and the pain in his chest lunged when he saw Daryl there in all his ragged glory. The younger man wasn't dressed nicely as Lori was, nor was he as clean faced as Carl had been, but he was a sight for Rick's sore, aching eyes.

"Daryl?" he breathed, scared to believe that the other man might be seeing him for what he was. "What did you call me?"

The dinner table was gone, any traces of the turkey or Rick's rustic, picturesque fantasy gone with it, and it was just Daryl standing there in the open with Carl at his side, sheriff's hat atop his dirty head, and Judith in Carl's arms. Daryl had a questioning look on his face, scrunched up in confusion at Rick's question and adjusting the crossbow on his shoulder. Slowly, the hunter stepped across the open space of the forest they were now in, shadows of the treetop canopy washing across his face beautifully, and Rick straightened himself in terrified anticipation.

"Rick."

Daryl was walking slowly, never seeming to gain any distance as if he were walking on a treadmill, and Rick felt some strange impatience stirring in his chest at what was going to happen next. Whatever was coming, he needed it, and he needed it now while his sanity was still barely intact. Rick started moving towards Daryl, legs bending on their own according, drawing closer to the other man in his restlessness. He didn't know what was to come, but he needed it to quell that fire within him and felt himself running through that treadmill of a feeling.

Rick was reaching for Daryl forevermore, desperate for some salvation from himself, and Daryl was all he could see. He was worried from the feel of things that he would never find it, never reach it, but saw Daryl stretching out his arm, reaching his hand to him, and abruptly closed it over Rick's mouth.

With a jolt, Rick woke, a heavy palm covering his mouth keeping him from making any noise. His heart was hammering from one thing or another, looking over to the owner of the warm hand covering half his face.

Daryl's face was hard and his eyes were piercing and angry, a finger raised to his lips to hush Rick. They nodded at each other and Daryl slowly raised his hand from Rick's face, the early morning frost crawling in to replace Daryl's body heat. The poncho slipped from their bodies as Daryl drew his skinning knife painstakingly slow, Rick giving him a bewildered stare. With his knife now drawn with a contextually loud _shink, _Daryl leaned in close to Rick's ear, sending hot chills down his still groggy body.

"There're two guys out there. Ain't lookin' ta make friends, neither."

Rick's blood turned to ice from his words despite the hot breath running along his neck. Daryl drew back, eyes dagger sharp and looking just as deadly while he peered out his window at the side mirror. Rick's side was impossible to see out of so he craned his neck up to try and look out of the rearview mirror, searching for the offenders. From the angle of his seat, Rick could only see two torsos, one heavily equipped with an automatic rifle - an AK47 from the looks of it, Rick swallowed - and the other with a small, but powerful looking hand cannon.

Leaning back into the chair, too wary of making noise to raise his seat into an upright position, Rick's mind began working a mile a minute. How could they manage to get out of this? He reached to his hip and drew his Colt from the holster, opened it as quietly as he could to check his bullets, and sheathed it again. Between him and Daryl, he knew they could kill two men easily, but there was no way they'd be able to do it without the risk of attracting that herd of walkers from last night. Rick peered across to Daryl's side of the window and could see a few walkers careening around as is - this fight could quickly become messy with those corpses factored in.

Sighing deeply, Rick rubbed at his temples. They didn't necessarily need to jump to killing these two strangers right off the bat, anyway. There was a chance they could all talk it out, possibly even invite the two back to camp with them if they were flying solo.

Daryl seemed far more on edge than he was normally, so Rick quickly discounted that idea to welcome them over as he trusted Daryl's instincts far more than he trusted these two men. The hunter had said earlier that they weren't looking to make friends, and Rick strained his ears to find out why. He could hear the outsiders talking, feel the pressure of them leaning against the trunk of the Dodge Neon, and kept a hand on the handle of his gun.

Just faintly, he could hear, "So what, we just gonna kill 'em here 'n take their stuff?"

Rick's heart rate rose at the man's words and tone, how cavalier he had spoken about killing them, and knew Daryl had been right to be wary of them. He looked to Daryl who was in turn watching the sideview mirror, fist tight around his skinning knife, and realized there was no way they'd likely be able to talk their way through this. Bitterly, Rick thought back to Dave and Tony in the bar they had found Hershel in a year ago, how they couldn't have been swayed one way or another. Guilt had haunted Rick for so long over their deaths, but eventually came to terms with the fact that they wouldn't listen to reason and had forced Rick's hand.

Some men are just begging for death, Rick thought tersely, and these two seemed no different in their eagerness to force Rick's hand again.

"Don't be an idiot," the other voice said gruffly, and Rick craned his neck to listen closer. "Look at 'am. What do you see?"

Rick closed his eyes quickly as he glimpsed the other man leaning down to peer in through the back windshield, not wanting to be caught awake just yet. He prayed the man didn't notice the poncho now at their feet, didn't notice Daryl's drawn weapon or Rick's tense muscles, prayed the man was wholly the idiot he had been deemed. They had an advantage if the strangers still believed them to be asleep, and Rick wanted to keep it that way until they had a plan of attack.

Keeping his eyes closed, Rick heard their muted conversation resume.

"Two dudes sleeping. Why?"

"You moron." There was a jostling and a quiet smack. "Guy's got a crossbow and the other's got a pretty nice gun. Looks like they've been eattin' pretty good, too."

"So?"

There was another smack. "_So, _that means they got some camp nearby. And if they got resources, the Governor's gonna wanna know about it since winter's riding our asses."

"Okay, got it. Don't gotta be a dick about it, Scotty."

While Rick was tucking away any information he could about these two men, Daryl was scanning the forest through his window, eyes hot and alive with something dangerous and protective. Rick watched as he slowly reached back behind him into the rear seat of the car grabbing blindly with his eyes still on something out his window.

"Apparently I haveta just to get anything through your thick skull," Scotty spat.

Daryl groped until he found what he was looking for and quietly, painstakingly, slid Rick's damp and ruined jacket into the driver's seat with him, eyes never leaving his window. With a sickening understanding, Rick couldn't help but admire the hunter's quick thinking as he strained to reach the window handle and cranked the glass down. A freezing bite filled their already tense atmosphere as the window crept downwards, Daryl cranking until there was just enough room for the dead turkey to slip through.

"What do you think the Governor's gonna do to 'em?"

Before lifting the turkey from his lap, Daryl tore his eyes from the walkers yards from the forest's edge and met Rick's eyes, waiting for his affirmation. Rick gave it to him, offering a small smile to ease the doubt in Daryl's face - he knew how hard it was for Daryl to sacrifice this, his first turkey, their first kill together, and knew he needed to be strong for him.

"Dunno, but I'd hate to be them."

With Rick's approval, Daryl flung the turkey from the window and it landed with a watery _thud_ on the ground just outside of the forest, drawing the attention of everyone around both dead and alive.

"What the hell was that?"

"Go check it out, numbnuts," Scotty demanded.

Rick's pulse was thundering in his ears, adrenaline working overtime as he saw the walkers pour through the clearing in alarming numbers. The herd from last night hadn't mulled very far from the car and Rick felt a mind-tingling fear at the thought of how exposed they had been, not just to these men but possibly just as unfortunate that they had been found by them instead.

"Biters! There's biters, Scotty!" The unknown yelped out, turning at the sight of the corpses.

Before the strangers could get their heads about them, Rick grabbed Daryl's arm and unlocked his car door, throwing it open. Rick hated this feeling, this sense of calm that he developed in times of hysteria - it made him feel like a monster, as Lori had called him in so many words once, but it had so often been necessary to the survival of the group. While other men floundered in their panic, such as these two, Rick outright flourished, excelled. Men who knew fear inside and out, men who were masters of suffering, men like him and Daryl were built for this world, taking fear and pain in stride with the brush of their shoulder and finger on the trigger.

There was gunfire and the fall of multiple walkers as the pack crept closer. Rick looked to Daryl and they nodded at each other, a silent, intimate understanding of one another yanking at Rick's heartstrings as they fled from the car through Rick's door. There was shouting after them, the two strangers torn between the loss of their captives and the many walkers barreling towards them.

Rick and Daryl flew across the street, blood pumping too hot to feel the stinging cold on their jacketless skin, and there were shots at their heels. Huffing, Rick couldn't believe it - he hadn't factored in the men turning fire on them instead of the walkers. Before the bullets found their marks in Rick and Daryl's backs, there was a scream and a sickening tearing of flesh, forcing the gunfire to stop.

The two men ran into the forest, not taking the time to look behind them at the multitude of threats at their backs.


	10. Preamble

.:Preamble:.

They didn't run for long before they began to slow, lungs swollen from the thin, icy air and necks still stiff from their cramped overnighter. Their breaths came in short, painful spurts as they stopped to regroup, Rick bent and hands braced against his thighs and Daryl propped up against a tree trunk. The two glanced at each other once they had scanned their environment, relaxing in silence for a few minutes when there was no immediate danger that they could sense.

Between his shallow breaths, Rick turned to Daryl and said, "We can't go home yet. I ain't takin' any risks on those two following us."

Daryl nodded at him, shrugging off his crossbow and loading it. With his arms bare, Rick could see his muscles thick and toned with the strain of cocking it and found himself mourning the sanctuary of Daryl's poncho. It was likely to start snowing any day now. "Ya think those two survived?"

"Nope."

Almost ironically, there was a resounding click to their right, the direction whence they ran from, and Daryl's question was answered. A few yards to their right, one of the men that had trapped them in the Dodge Neon stood poised and scared, fear alight in his eyes and trembling in his hands, shaking the handgun within it. His clothes were torn and bloodied, hair skewed and overall looking to be a discombobulated, frantic mess, but his eyebrows were knit together in some edgy fury. Despite his terror-contorted face and shaking hands, he held the gun trained on Daryl, to which Rick felt a sickening curl in his stomach.

"Just me."

It was the alleged idiot from the car.

Daryl looked to Rick from behind his raised crossbow, clearly ready to eliminate this threat, but Rick shook his head and slowly raised his empty hands instead. Rick could see the frown on Daryl's face and could practically feel his reluctance from here, but the hunter complied and eventually raised his hands as well, loaded bow pointed upwards as a show of good will.

"Hey, hey," Rick tried, voice calm. If he could talk this man down from his apparent cliff, maybe all three of them could get out of this standoff alive, but at the moment, all he wanted was that gun off of Daryl. "Maybe we can talk this out somehow - "

"No!" the man shouted, jerking his gun towards Rick. Next to him, he could feel Daryl stiffen, twitching with the desire to lower his crossbow again. "You shut your mouth! There ain't gonna be no talking, not after what you two did. Now get on the ground, both of you!"

Glancing at each other, Rick and Daryl slowly bent until their knees met with the wet, dewy grass, quickly dampening their jeans. The man eyed them like they were wolves that had backed him into a corner, pacing back and forth in front of them wildly and swinging the barrel of the gun from one to the other.

"Look, this has all just been one misunderstanding, nothing we can't work through," Rick attempted again to calm the man, but was interrupted once more.

"No, you look!" the man's voice was pitched in desperation and he inched a step closer, settling the pistol on Rick. Rick watched him warily, knowing that if he came close enough, he and Daryl could disarm and subdue him. His training on the force had taught Rick enough close quarters combat to pin someone into compliance and throughout the years had grappled with enough drunk idiots and criminal runners to know the human body's weak points. Unfortunately, Rick also knew that every point on a human body was a weak point to bullets, making it hard to look past the firearm currently a few yards from his face. The man's agitation was growing as he said, "Scotty's dead! That's not something we can work through. No, no, he's dead and there's gonna be hell to pay.

"So who did it? Was it you?" he continued, egging himself on with another step forward. He gestured with the gun towards Rick's face and Daryl growled a low, meaningful warning that only Rick could hear. Gently, practically unnoticeable unless looking for it, Rick twitched his head 'no'. "What, you killed my friend then start running your mouth?"

The idiot was cracking in his vindictive frenzy, lips breaking into a smile and eyes wide with what he seemed to have in mind. It was all Rick could do to keep his knees to the ground and eyes on the man, trying to be patient as he waited for the man to slip up. In times of crises, most people lost themselves to their panic eventually, which made them more dangerous and unpredictable, and Rick was just waiting for the most opportune moment, the moment when the this threat of a man lost himself. Rick had been trained to detect that moment, drilled into reacting accordingly and taking advantage of whatever slip up presented itself. It was like a reflex to take control of hectic situations at this point.

"It was you, wasn't it?" He was coming closer now and Rick felt his heartbeat working overtime as he mentally prepared himself for the upcoming altercation, just moments away, just feet away. He was waiting for the cold kiss of the barrel against his forehead to twist the man's wrist, sweep his legs out beneath him, and pin him to the ground with his knees. The twitching in his tendons and flooding of his adrenaline was like a welcoming muscle memory, damn near giddy to have the upper hand in just a few more moments, a few more steps.

"Huh, smartass?" Just inches away now. "I'm gonna kill you." The icy metal was just so close.

Unpredictable was just so predictable anymore.

"It was me."

Rick's heart, working so methodically in this time of peril, stopped at Daryl's voice. The gunman paused as well, looking from Rick to Daryl, before straightening and leaning back out of Rick's comfortable grappling reach.

"You with the crossbow? This was your doing?" The man was breathing heavily now, all traces of his deranged smile gone in his surprise at Daryl's admittance. Rick could have smacked himself at the opportunity now lost as the man shifted his attention to the hunter. "You drew those biters all over Scotty?"

Daryl nodded, eyes trained on the gun now faltering in his direction, shaking in the man's hand whose mouth was agape and face washed with some delirious sadness. "Damn straight. Now you leave him outta it."

There was a churning in the man's skull before something menacing clicked and he shook his head. "Oh no. No, no, no." Suddenly, the harsh steel of the gun was very close to Rick's face again, close enough for Rick to see that the safety was off. "He's your friend, right? Think I'll kill him instead."

It was a moment of madness next. Rick watched as the man moved his forefinger to the trigger, a heartbeat too late to attack as a loud blast rattled him and a searing pain gutted him, blossoming from his shoulder. A flash of movement from his right where Daryl had been was mixed with blinding pain and muddied senses, the wet ground rushing up to meet his head. Rick squeezed his eyes closed, the splitting headache from the gun being fired so close to his head ringing promises of tinnitus and muting the throbbing in his left shoulder. Grassy water seeped into his hair and clothing and was almost refreshing in this surreal moment.

There was a thud not even seconds after he fell sideways, eyes raising blearily to meet those faraway ones of the gunman. Rick watched as the life left his face, the fight left his snarl, and the blood left his body, beading up and congealing around the arrow embedded in his forehead. There were haunting moments of clarity in the man's eyes as he must have realized in that moment that he was dead, probably dead before he had even pulled the trigger of his gun from Daryl's faster reflexes.

Rick tried not to feel the guilt welling up in his heart as he watched the nameless man become limp and vacant, lifeless. There was no longer any one home to claim vengeance, to force Rick's hand, and the relief Rick felt was far overshadowed by his conscious demanding penance for the life lost.

Calloused hands seized his shoulders, latching onto him with some kind of panic, and carefully drew him upright so that his hazy world was horizontal again. With his vision still muddled and conflicted with the ringing in his ears, Rick watched as Daryl mouthed his name with a haunting mutedness then squeezed his eyes shut, feeling nauseated as all hell. Rick pitched forward, so close to losing the meager berries and squirrel he had eaten the day before, and clamped his mouth shut to keep it down.

There was a tentative rubbing on his bowed back, fingertips rubbing small circles into his taut muscles that Rick barely registered as Daryl's digits. The thought might have sent butterflies down his stomach if he hadn't felt so much goddamn anguish at the way this morning had all played out.

For the next few moments, Rick stayed kneeling with his head down, trying to keep the nausea at bay and willing the spinning in his head to stop. The shrill ringing in his ears started to dull, finally allowing him to think clearly, and Rick quickly rose a hand to each ear to check for blood while Daryl's practiced hand grazed his wounded shoulder. Rick shivered at the pain that jolted in his arm as Daryl tore away the fabric of his shirt and pulled it back enough to give him a good look at the damage, watching Daryl's eyes squint in his examination.

Daryl relaxed significantly and drew back with an exhale Rick could just faintly hear. "Just clipped ya. Bleedin' pretty good, 'n ya might need stitches, but you'll live."

The relief Rick felt at hearing Daryl was nowhere near the magnitude of his anger at Daryl's choice of words, eyes flashing to Daryl's hotly. "Yeah, well, that's more than he can say, ain't it?" Rick, barely able to hear his own voice above the swimming in his ears, gestured to the dead man lying just a few feet away from them, but Daryl didn't need the indication to grow defensive.

"More 'n he deserves, too," Daryl said guardedly.

Rick shook off Daryl's hand at his shoulder and stood up sharply, knees popping and head spinning as he stumbled away from the body. Daryl rose immediately with his hands out, looking as if he wanted to steady Rick, but Rick rose his hand to stop the younger man and braced himself against a tree instead. A look of hurt crossed Daryl's face that Rick felt a momentary stab of guilt for, but was seething far too hotly to stop himself.

"That ain't up to us, Daryl," Rick pressed, voice still sounding far-away, and watched Daryl's face darken. There was something nagging at Rick, something urging him away from doing this, but he ignored it.

"The hell it ain't," spat Daryl, Southern drawl slipping in his anger. "That sum'bitch had a gun on ya, Rick."

Clenching his jaw, Rick tried again to reason with his irate companion. "I had a plan. I was gonna handle it." Daryl took a step towards him, eyes sharp and narrow in his agitation, and Rick felt a twinge of wariness. Rick trusted Daryl with his life a hundred times over, but he didn't know if he put the man past punching him when he thought Rick was being careless with his own life.

"You was gonna get yerself killed, you mean."

Rick stepped away from the tree, finally steady enough to stand his ground, and responded, "What happens when his group comes looking for him and his partner? When this 'Governor' finds out two of his men died patrolling 'round these parts?"

Daryl had enough demure about him to look sheepish and stepped back, looking back at the death he had created. Rick stepped towards him, the brush around them creating morning shadows on his face as he advanced, refusing to give Daryl any leeway for his carelessness. The younger man had seemed resolved to kill their adversary before thinking of the consequences simply because Rick had a loaded gun between his eyes.

"So, what, you wanted another Randall on our hands?" Daryl struck a nerve in Rick, guilt pinching up over yet another unnecessary death on his conscious, now scarred and battered to shit. "I did what I had to, Rick."

Anger rising, Rick continued to back Daryl up and ignored that sense of urgency inside him. "No, you killed someone without any second thought - "

That seemed to be the last straw for Daryl, who stopped dead in his tracks with a scowl on his face and interrupted, "To hell with second thought! He forced my hand, Rick. I ain't gonna sit around while someone threatens me 'n my own, and I sure as hell ain't sorry for wasting someone if it means…" Daryl trailed off lamely, wavering and looking away from him. Rick was stunned to silence by Daryl's outbreak, mouth slightly open from Daryl's terminology and diction.

His own?

Silence stretched on between the two and Rick felt an uneasiness in his heart, nerves eroding to dust at the stark bluntness in Daryl's words. Rick wondered if he had misheard him, replaying his sentence in his reeling head and undressing it for whatever it could be beneath the rough voice, the sculpted jaw, the thin lips. Dizzy, Rick turned his eyes away, finding himself unable to look at the other man. He felt some expectation, a strange anticipation building with no outlet that Rick could fathom and felt at a loss of what to do with himself. There was frustration bleeding in like ink, opaque and webbing across his nerves in an evasive filigree just outside his reach of understanding.

Rick's patience was drawing thin. He didn't like feeling like the odd man out, like he was on the outside of whatever this heart-provoking loop was between him and Daryl. A foreigner to his own damned, clenching heart.

"If it means what, Daryl?" Rick prompted gently, relinquishing his hold on his boiling anger in favor of hearing the other man out. Daryl chewed on his bottom lip, agitated, and shook his head. With his earlier temper abating, Rick starting feeling the cold air prickling at his wounds - the subdued gash in his hand, the bullet graze in his searing shoulder, the pounding in his head. But Rick waited, as patiently as he could with this insistent drive buzzing in his veins spurring him on and away. Daryl wouldn't say any more, vulnerable all over and looking to all the world as if he were shrinking into overgrowth around them, chewing on his nail like a deliverance from himself.

"Daryl," he spoke softly, wanting something from the younger man, something unidentifiable.

Ignoring Rick's approach, Daryl nodded to Rick's throbbing shoulder wound which was now a harsh, angry red and leaking down his arm at a worrisome rate. "Ya need some pressure on that." The words were posed more as a statement than a question and Rick said nothing as Daryl stepped closer to him, reaching up to take the last shreds of Rick's left sleeve and managing to create a small bandage over the lesion. His broken skin pulsed painfully beneath the pressure of the knot, but Rick was grateful for his work once more.

"Are ya always gettin' hurt this much?" Daryl cracked a smirk forcefully, trying to change the subject. "It's a wonder yer still alive at all. Yer spatial awareness is shit, man."

Rick opened his mouth to respond, but his playful response died in his mouth and his heart froze over for the hundredth time today as he saw the decaying forms of walkers stumbling in their direction. Suddenly, all he could see was Daryl as he arm-barred the hunter in the chest with one forearm, driving him back and into a tree surrounded by foliage until they were as hidden as could be.

Daryl's eyes were wide with surprise, then narrow with confusion as his back was braced against the trunk of the tree Rick pushed them into. Rick's hand flew to Daryl's mouth, covering it and shaking his head 'no' to him as the walkers approached. The two men huddled into the overbrush, dying plantlife hopefully obscuring them enough to anything with half a brain, and when Rick felt confident that Daryl wasn't going to make any noise, removed his hand to draw his knife. Daryl followed suit, equipping his blade silently as the first walker stumbled past them.

Their breaths were held and their bodies stilled as two or three more bumbled past. Rick felt like an idiot for ignoring his natural instincts in favor of quarreling with his companion, realizing now what that sense of urgency had been driving him from. That gunshot that had crippled Rick's faculties was sure to draw that herd of walkers, the mindless cattle that they were, and Rick had shamefully put that on the backburner.

From their positions, Rick covering Daryl's body with their chests touching lightly, Rick could feel Daryl's heartbeat, wild and erratic, and wondered vaguely if the other man could feel his own. The thought was comforting, soothing in an inauspicious way.

They stood like that as the minutes ticked by, chest to chest, breathing as lightly as possible and trying not to rattle the wilted leaves with their trembling.

With Daryl watching his back at the walkers migrating away, Rick took the liberty to peek past Daryl and through the dead branches of their little cavern at the rest of the horde. Numerous of the dead were piling on top of each other, trying desperately to get at the body of the man they downed just minutes ago. They were literally yards away from them, but were all distracted by the meat now lain open for them and feasting grotesquely.

Looking back into the hunter's eyes, Rick nodded meaningfully, trusting their intimate and nonverbal connection to communicate to Daryl that this was their chance. Daryl looked up and around, scanning the area behind Rick, before nodding back. The two men fled the grisly banquet and Rick found himself wishing for the first time in a long while that life could be different, without the constant threat of the undead at their heels. It was a desire that had died with the eventual acceptance of this world, but he found a sudden and strange longing to live in a world where intimate moments weren't clouded with fear and danger.

His own.

Rick mused the other man's words over in his head again as they continued to put distance between them and the decaying mass at their backs, feeling something other than emptiness gnawing inside him. Something sweet, strong enough to outshine the horror and resignation of their world, almost like affection but stronger. Affection was something he held for Carl, Judy, Hershel, his family. With Daryl, it had been something almost incapacitating for a long time, addictive and luscious, but never satisfied. It was irritatingly evasive and overwhelmingly captivating, but Rick didn't dare name it with anything. He was almost afraid of how much he wanted Daryl to call him his own again, embarrassed by the thrill of Daryl saving his life, obsessed with the intoxication of saving his in return.

Coming up short once more, Rick decided to let it go and opted to ride out this high instead. "Now, what were you saying about my spatial awareness?" he teased, grin plastered to his face in his swelling euphoria.

Daryl scoffed, rolling his eyes as they ran through the forest. "Don't go bragging yet, 'r I might just let ya bleed out next time."

"Does this mean we're even now?"

There was a shit-eating grin mirrored on the hunter's face and for the first time in his life, Rick could have sworn he heard Daryl - stoic, aloof, obelisk of a man Daryl - laughing over the tingling and pounding in his own head, his chest.

"Not even close."

* * *

><p>"Love is patient, love is kind," her dad's voice rang stronger than normal, echoing in the acoustics of her prison cell and reverberating in her still-tender soul. She very much loved this passage and needed to hear it from time to time again. Now was one of those such times.<p>

"It does not envy, it does not boast," Hershel continued, glancing up at his daughter with his smiling eyes. "It is not proud, it is not rude."

Maggie smiled back at him. This sneaky old man must have known she and Glenn had gotten into a fight that morning and hobbled up the stairs with his bible in tow. Whenever she was upset as a little girl - the times Maggie had been scorned by boys at school, the nights Hershel would come home liquored out of his mind, the divorce of her parents - her dad would find his way to her with Corinthians' words pouring from his lips.

The two of them were on Maggie's bunk together, Hershel sitting with his amputated leg propped up on the mattress and Maggie with her knees curled in to her chest. She rested her chin on her knees, listening as her dad read from the worn bible in his lap.

"It is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered." At this, Hershel paused and glanced up from the passage to give Maggie a meaningful look with a knowing, playful glint in his eye.

"What, is that supposed to mean something?" Maggie huffed and shoved his shoulder lightly in mock offense.

Hershel just laughed and shook his head. "It keeps no record of wrongs." Another pointed look, another feigned huff. Inside, Maggie delighted in this, as most of their bible studies lately were centered around God's great will and the eternal damnation promised to those who stray from Him. It was refreshing to hear a sermon on love, Maggie's favorite sermon even, in these loveless and forsaken times.

"It always protects," spoke Hershel, voice becoming more and more weighted as he read on. This part in particular always had such a heavy impact on Maggie, shaping her definition of the construct that is love and molding her ideals for the woman she wanted to be.

She spoke with him, voice just as impassioned, "It always trusts, always hopes, always preserves."

Goosebumps ran their way up her olive skin to her core, wringing her heart of any bitterness or anger she felt from her morning with Glenn. She felt relieved, exorcised, proof to her that the words of this soothsayer hailing from Corinth were in fact prose danced from the lips of angels themselves. Closing her eyes, Maggie basked in her cleansed heart.

"Love never fails," they ended, voice in harmony together. "Corinthian thirteen, four."

A moment of silence followed until Maggie eventually opened her eyes, grinning gratefully at her dad who in turn smiled right back at her. His plush beard and mustache rose jovially with his smile as he said, "Now that's unconditional love."

Maggie couldn't agree more, heart swelling from the hallowed scripture and warmth she felt despite the chill of the prison. "Thanks for that, daddy."

"Don't thank me," Hershel chuckled lightheartedly, patting his daughter on the knee with one hand and closing the holy book with the other. "I'm just the messenger for the Lord, my dear. And something tells me He wouldn't want you and Glenn fighting with each other when what we need is a little bit of happiness to go 'round."

Shrugging her thin shoulder, Maggie looked away and pulled her legs tighter to her, humbled by the bible verse and guilty from their fight. "I know," she agreed reluctantly, still unable to relinquish some of the fight in her now that it had been brought to light again. She thought back to their heated conversation that morning, the appalled look Glenn had on his boyish face had only fueled her trademark Southern temper further. For Christ's sake, how her sweet, loving boyfriend could be so thick-headed sometimes was beyond Maggie.

Hershel squeezed her knee, drawing her attention back to him. "You don't have to tell me about it, but you do have to find it in yourself to forgive him. 'For their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more'."

"'For their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more'," repeated Maggie, smiling half-heartedly at her father. "Let forgiveness flow through you like the holy ghost and purge the seed of hatred from your soul. Well, it's a-flowin', daddy. It's just, how can a person even say that somebody's 'too manly' for love?"

Silver eyebrows scrunching together quizzically, Hershel frowned. "What?"

"Exactly!" his daughter exclaimed, working herself up over the fight from hours ago. She uncoiled herself, letting her long legs dangle off the edge of the bunk and gesturing disbelief with her hands. "I mean, what kind of idiot says that sort of thing?" Huffing for real this time, Maggie leaned back against the wall of the cell, jumping a little when the freezing stone bit her heated skin, and crossed her arms sullenly. "My idiot, that's who."

There was a pause while Maggie simmered over ghostly provocations, bottom lip stuck out as was standard when she was upset, before Hershel ventured, "Who was Glenn talking about, Maggie?"

"Rick," Maggie scoffed before continuing. "Can you believe that? Poor guy deserves the world after all he's been through."

Hershel frowned again, taken aback, and Maggie sucked in her bottom lip at her carelessness. She had initially intended to keep her dad in the dark about their fight, knowing his involvement would only complicate issues, but in her rising restlessness she had a lapse in whom she was venting to.

"But, ya know, don't we all?" said Maggie with a blasé laugh, trying to backpedal from her blunder before he became all the wiser. When there was no response, just a grave look in his solemn old eyes, she sucked her lips in, trying her best to look innocuous and uninvolved.

Face unreadable, Hershel clearly wasn't falling for it and looked at Maggie seriously. Raising a bushy eyebrow, Hershel spoke. "Is there something going on that I should know about?"

"No, daddy, it's nothing," Maggie quickly shook her head, sending her short brown hair swishing back and forth, and smiled as genuinely as she could at her worried father. "Just a game Beth and I like to play sometimes. Glenn was just being an ass, pardon my mouth, but there ain't anything going on for you to worry about."

And it wasn't a lie, not really. She and Beth liked to pair people up on occasion and fight over who would make the best couple, but it was always harmless and definitely not something her dad and his archaic views needed to get entangled in. Heck, their little game wasn't exactly received well by her open-minded boyfriend - whom, by the way, didn't seem to be very forward thinking after all, Maggie reminded herself. The fact that it happened to be Daryl she and Beth paired Rick with was a nuance Maggie didn't think was all that big of a deal.

Though she doubted her father would feel the same way as her. No, it was best to keep him out of this, especially considering he'd probably just go have one of his talking-to's to the men. Maggie tried to envision it and found that she couldn't imagine anything more mortifying for everybody involved.

"Rick? Daryl? I think we need to sit down and talk. See, my girls have been watching you two, and from what they've told me, I think it's time for a long overdue bible study."

Maggie cringed inwardly at the thought - there was no way she was getting Hershel involved in this, for everyone's sanity. She loved her daddy with all her heart, but his conservative beliefs were a little backwards sometimes as far as Maggie was concerned. Georgia wasn't exactly known for its acceptance or its liberal foundations, but Maggie could never quite find it in her heart to think that somebody should be discriminated against just for who they love.

Corinthian always preached that unconditional love was a beautiful thing.

Hershel smiled at her and squeezed her knee again, looking quite unconvinced but didn't pursue the issue. "Well, if you say so. I know how you and your sister like to gossip." With that, Hershel gave his daughter a light tap on her joint then reached back behind him for his crutches.

Smiling back, Maggie leaned over and pecked Hershel on the cheek. "Thanks for stopping by, daddy. I know it's quite a trip."

With Maggie's help and slow, careful movements, the two managed to situate Hershel upright and weighing on his crutches. He touched her cheek and pocketed his leather bible, saying, "Oh, I was in the neighborhood. Figured I'd stop by." Maggie chuckled and rolled her eyes - even at the end of the world, her dad was still cracking lame jokes just to see her smile. Despite being in hell itself where the dead walked the surface and the living crawled the trenches, where death and day were as one distillation, Hershel was still full of his old dad-jokes. With the quintessence of life snarling and biting at one's own bread and wine of self, breathing down their necks, normalcy and humor was a Godsend that Maggie rejoiced in.

"And Maggie," Hershel started, wincing as his old bones popped from standing up. "Try and go easy on him, alright?"

Maggie pursed her lips, shrugging impishly. "We'll see."

The two laughed together, forgetting the world for a moment before it came crashing through the cell door in the form of a tousled Glenn, babbling loudly enough to echo through the catwalk.

"Maggie! Maggie, they're back! They're - Oh," flushed, Glenn barrelled into his and Maggie's small cell, stopping short and straightening abruptly when he noticed his girlfriend's company. He cleared his throat and nodded at both of them, rounded face colored all shades of gracelessly formal and thoroughly embarrassed.

"Glenn," Hershel acknowledged, nodding back at him.

"Um, hello, sir," he cleared his throat and looked for the life of him to be completely out of place. To Maggie, he offered a small, apologetic quirk of his lips and said far more casually, "Hey."

"Hey, hon'," Maggie returned, eyebrows jerking upwards in her expectancy. "What were you hollerin' about just now?"

"Rick and Daryl!" spoke Glenn breathlessly, molting from his previous facade of formality and leaping into his usual shell of excitement and over abundance of energy. Maggie's face lit up at his loud proclamation, face splitting into a grin at the return of her comrades, and Hershel appeared similarly pleased. "They're finally back!"

"Our boys are home."


	11. Homestead

.:Homestead:.

There was a happy commotion as Rick stepped through the chainlink fence surrounding the prison, Daryl at his back between him and the stray walkers, his family at his front between him and his home. The congruity of it all was not dismissed by Rick as he grinned wholeheartedly at his loved ones, turning to flash his elation at the man covering his rear and rushing forward through the gate with Daryl at his heels. There was something indescribable about this feeling of amenity and Rick knew there was some analogy in this moment, but was too lost in it to find it.

"Dad!"

Rick's heartstrings tore at Carl rushing down from the prison, holding onto the brim of his hat to keep it in place. Beth and Maggie were at the top of the hill with Hershel, helping him hobble down the uneven terrain, while Glenn restlessly kept pace with them. Carol and Axel were at the fence's gate, holding it open for them and shutting it tight once the two men had entered, and Oscar was trailing behind cradling Judith.

Bounding forward, Rick met his son halfway and pulled him into his arms to squeeze him tight. "Carl…"

"Hey, Dad," Carl said, muffled in Rick's chest. He squeezed his thin arms around Rick, pulling back when his sheriff's hat started falling off and smiled up at his dad. Rick grinned back down at him and jostled his hat, musing Carl's long hair and causing him to jerk back to fix it.

"It's about time you two showed up," started Carol from behind them. She was smiling at them both, relief apparent on her face, but there was a chiding tone to her words.

Axel stood next to Carol, seemingly where he was beginning to be the most at home, and piped up, "We all thought you two was gonna be back yesterday."

"Yeah, where were you guys?" Carl questioned, looking up to Rick.

"Hunting," gave Rick, an emphasis in his inflection indicating quite pointedly that he wasn't going to say anything further about it. Carl was visibly put off, as was Carol, and the two then looked expectantly to Daryl for their answers. Daryl looked hilariously unsettled under the inquisitive spotlight, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and looking away from the demanding gazes.

"Two days to hunt?" Carol rose a thin eyebrow at him, almost accusatory in her face and body language.

"We got caught up in somethin'," came Daryl's quiet but gravely response. Carol's eyebrow only rose higher at Daryl's piteous and inadequate offering, which he shied away from by looking to Rick helplessly. Rick was torn between laughing good-naturedly and helping the guy out somehow, but settled for watching their interaction go on.

"'Sides, it was only a day 'n a half, woman," he added, the unspoken 'get off my back' practically resounding in his speech.

Carol huffed, amused as she swatted Daryl's shoulder like they were lifelong friends in the midst of their usual banter. "Well _excuse _me," she sassed, rolling her eyes at them both before giving Rick a meaningful look. He sighed inwardly, knowing what that look entailed - it seemed as if he still couldn't be alone with his friend without getting the third degree from someone, despite Lori no longer hovering over them both.

Even Carl seemed desperate to get the scoop on their hunting trip and Rick couldn't say that he blamed him much. As competent as the group had become in the past year at surviving and dispatching walkers, going out on runs and hunts were still regarded as dangerous. To leave the others in the dark while Rick and Daryl spent the night out on their hunt was something Rick knew was going to worry the others half to death, and as necessary as it was, it didn't help the stabbing guilt in Rick's gut. Worrying his people wasn't something Rick ever wanted to do, but worrying his son downright devastated him. Carl staying up all night, wondering if his dad was coming home or not, just killed Rick.

Turning to his son, he offered an apologetic smile. "Sorry to keep you waiting, son."

"S'alright," he shrugged and tipped his hat at Daryl and his dad, leaning back into a facade of composure and shoving his hands in his pockets. "I took care of the place while you two were gone." Daryl snorted and whacked Carl on his back, shoving him gently, and received a playful punch in return from the teen. Rick grinned to himself as he watched the two start to wrestle, ending with Daryl grappling Carl into a chokehold and Carl trying to squirm his way out.

"Can't weasel yer way outta this, kid," Daryl laughed lightly, eyes twinkling and lips smiling. Rick's found himself chuckling with him as he watched these two that shared his heart goof around and laugh together.

The usual pang of guilt tainted his joy as it sunk in just how much Lori would have their heads for this - Daryl for being so surly, Carl for rough housing, and Rick for just watching, laughing. His humor faded and he thumbed his wedding ring for the second time in recent hours, swallowing a strange lump in his throat as Daryl instructed his son how to fight his way out of a chokehold.

In the middle of Daryl showing Carl how to drop his weight, however puny it was, Carol spoke up and caused the the two men to freeze.

"Daryl, where's your poncho?"

Carl slipped from Daryl's grasp in the interruption, smiling and laughing in his victory, but stopped at the hunter's usual scowl. Daryl turned his frown on Carol and for a moment, Rick worried about what rude offhand comment was destined to be flung from the other man's mouth towards her. Did nobody else pick up on when Daryl didn't want to talk about something? It seemed so obvious to Rick, all of Daryl's not-so-subtleties, but it seemed he was the only one savvy to them.

Before Daryl could spit whatever he had planned to, there was a shouting towards them.

"Hey!" Glenn called, catching the attention of everyone around. "Finally! You guys get anything good?" Maggie glared at him and flicked his ear playfully, eliciting a sharp 'ah!' from Glenn who tried to duck out of the way from any further attacks.

"Welcome back, guys!" Beth chirped as the four of them came close.

Rick and Daryl were grateful for the disruption and nodded at their welcoming faces, all smiling and happy to see the two alive and well. "Hey," he greeted. Hershel nodded back at him and shooed away his daughters supporting hands, balancing himself on the abundance of dead grass beneath his crutches.

"Jeez, we thought you two had skipped town or something," teased Glenn, a wide smirk dancing on his lips and in his devious eyes. He raised his eyebrows tauntingly as he said, "Something happen out there? Ow!"

Maggie flicked him again, which he swatted at this time. "Could you be any less oblivious? They just got home, let 'em relax, would you?"

Glenn muttered to himself and rubbed his earlobe tenderly, pouting a little as Rick and the Greene family chatted. Out of the corner of his eye, Rick watched Daryl approach the sullen man with two racoons, held by their long and bushy tails, which brightened Glenn's face significantly. After the incident, Daryl had insisted that they wouldn't return home empty handed, despite their streak of dangerously bad luck on the hunt, and had managed to bag two large racoons.

A smirk had been plastered on Daryl's face when he dislodged the arrows from the two rodents, but there had been barely-hidden remorse gracing his features since the loss of their turkey. Rick knew that his drive to come home with something, anything, was derived from his sense of loss at having to sacrifice their first kill together, wanting to compensate for their lack of game.

"Sup, man," said Oscar as he approached the gathering, offering Rick's baby girl when he came close enough. Rick's heart skipped a beat at his daughter's sleeping face, slack and innocent and beautiful, and happily took her from him. He thanked Oscar genuinely and tucked Judith into his body heat, hoping to shield her sensitive skin from the bite of the winter air. Beth and Maggie were smiling as they watched on and Rick felt Daryl's presence come close, far closer than normal, to look at Judith over Rick's shoulder.

"Hey, Lil' Asskicker," Daryl cooed quietly, voice startingly close to Rick's ear. He hoped the jump in his heart rate didn't disturb his baby girl as Daryl fawned over her, still just barely within Rick's personal space.

There was merry conversation as the group congregated up the hill and back to the prison, grass crunching beneath their feet barrenly, Daryl never straying far from the Grimes.

"Rick," Hershel spoke, drawing his attention away from his and the Greene girls' conversation. Worry etched his wrinkled face and dripped from his heavy words and he stopped his laborious trek up the hill, staying silent enough not to draw too much focus to them. "What happened to your arm?"

Rick paused, looking from Hershel to Daryl, not wanting to make that information known just yet. Instead, he shrugged and casually said, "Oh, it's nothing bad."

Daryl gave Rick a narrow look and Rick knew immediately what he wanted. "Wouldn't hurt to get it looked at," Daryl insisted, dragging his gaze from Rick's blue eyes to Hershel's worried ones. Wordlessly, Rick pleaded for the other man to leave it at that and was pleasantly surprised when he did. Hershel nodded knowingly, telling him he'd come check on him later, and was quiet the rest of the trip to the prison. Rick tried to smile at Daryl, tried to show him how thankful he was that he didn't pursue the issue, but the hunter wouldn't meet his eyes.

"You're lucky Daryl was there," Hershel chided as he dabbed flaming alcohol into Rick's open skin. He winced at both the searing pain and the deflating reprimand, knowing Hershel was justified in his chastising but was already sore all over from kicking himself.

"Don't I know it," Rick sighed, more to himself than anything. The self-depreciation bled to his features and dripped from his voice, this sense of fault was a major factor why Rick didn't care to disclose their minute by minute trip of just the two of them, along with numerous other embarrassing reasons. His family was nothing if not inquisitive, clinging to any sort of normalcy in their gossip and drama. Anything that wasn't decaying or trying to kill them was refreshing anymore, and something most of them desperately vied for.

Hershel pulled back at Rick's tone, eyes scoping his face as his fingers paused. "I don't care to scold you, but I mean it, Rick. You could've lost a lot of blood from this," at that, he dipped the cotton cloth into the laceration at Rick's shoulder, spreading pain throughout his arm. "You wanna tell me what happened?"

Rick didn't respond immediately, biting his tongue as Hershel cleaned his wounds and made to dress them. Hesitantly, he looked to the old man and spoke, "We ran into other survivors out there."

There was a falter in Hershel's hands, but no other reaction came from the older man and he remained quiet, waiting for Rick to continue. "Weren't exactly the friendly type, neither. That's what gave me this." He shrugged his left shoulder in indication, accidentally jostling Hershel's cleaning, and carefully gauged his reaction. There wasn't much of one in his gray face, just a hard look and a calculation in his eyes.

"Did you try talking to them?" Hershel's words were slow and measured as he spoke.

Rick heaved a sigh. "They didn't exactly give us the chance. A herd of walkers kept us in a broken down car all night, and come morning, these two guys had us trapped in." He wasn't looking at Hershel as he recounted their night out, eyes distant and reaching to remember what he could about their encounter with the strangers.

"We managed to get away thanks to that herd, but one of 'em tailed us with a gun 'n nicked me," he continued.

Hershel sat back and asked, "What happened to them?"

"Dead."

A solemn voice came from behind them, muted and grave, and drew their attention towards the doorway where Daryl stood with a sleeping Judith nestled in his strong arms. His footsteps had been practically nonexistent in the echoing stone cavern of Rick's cell so Rick had no idea how long the other man had been standing there.

"They both are," Daryl finished, voice unforgiving and defensive. "Didn't give me any choice."

Silence filled the space between them, Hershel threading dental floss through a curved needle and Daryl looking to Judith as he bounced her gently. Rick felt a wave of relief flooding his senses at finally bringing this problem to light with someone, especially considering that someone in particular wasn't any type to lose his head over something. If anything, Hershel was a good guide of conscious and morality to counsel him through this stressful conundrum and the outlet was purely cathartic for Rick.

"Were there any more of them?" Hershel asked as he held the needle over a candle flame to warm it, turning it over and over.

"None that we saw there." Rick ran his hands over his face haggardly, weaving his long fingers through his increasingly bushy beard. "But from the sounds of things, they got themselves a group somewhere, led by some guy who calls himself 'the Governor'."

Daryl cleared his throat. "N' they had guns on 'em. Some heavy artillery."

Exhaling, Hershel raised his eyebrows at the news and dipped the metal into his petri dish of alcohol before raising it to Rick's broken skin. Rick tensed and bit his lip at the all-consuming sting of the hot needle pricking through his inflamed skin, trying to focus on the conversation at hand to dull the pain. Daryl was watching Rick now, a shade of worry coloring his face at Rick's apparent discomfort, but made no move to come any closer.

"This worries me, boys," Hershel breathed, hands steady and practiced as they looped the strange, tingling, minty thread through Rick's opening in his shoulder. He vaguely regretted turning down the pain killers Hershel had offered him before this minor surgery, but knew they'd just be a luxury someone else needed far more than him.

Rick sucked in a breath and tried to keep the pain from showing on his face, doing his damndest to sit still. Hershel seemed to notice and gestured to Daryl.

"Son, I'm gonna need you to hold him down, if you can."

Daryl froze, eyes wide and appalled as if Hershel had just asked him to hold down a walker. No, Rick corrected mentally, he was positive he had seen the other man restrain a walker with far more enthusiasm and less misgivings than was on his face right now. Hell, he acted as if wrestling with things trying to kill him was a hobby of his compared to being asked to hold Rick.

Bouncing the sleeping baby sheepishly, Daryl said, "Looks like yer doin' just fine without me, old man."

Hershel's thick eyebrows rose at Daryl's biting response, pausing his stitching to rebuke, "Looks like Rick's not gonna heal properly in that case. Being the one performing surgical care, I can tell you this would be a lot easier if someone held Rick's arm still."

Awkwardly, admonished, Daryl turned to the small crib in Rick's cell and gently laid Judith down as if she were made of precious glass, taking his sweet time to tuck her into her blankets and brush her forehead lovingly, stalling. His attitude was far less tender as he straightened and came to Rick's side, holding his left arm clumsily without looking at him. His grasp was skittish and vague as if he were trying to keep Rick's bare skin on his own minimal, arms extended their full length from Daryl's seat on the man's bed.

Rick might have been both parts offended and amused by the situation if not for the thin piece of metal currently jutting from his throbbing skin in an arc and the creeping icy hot sensation from the peppermint floss.

"Like this?" Daryl asked apprehensively.

Smiling lightly and with one hand keeping the needle in place, Hershel used his other hand to direct Daryl's tentative ones, guiding them to a more secure position on Rick's forearm and shoulder blade. The change in position had drawn Daryl closer, leaning in slightly, and the two men wouldn't look at each other. Hershel seemed to notice and chuckled at these grown men acting like schoolboys, eliciting a growl in return from the tense hunter.

"That's better. Thank you, Daryl. This'll go much faster now," Hershel thanked and continued his work. Daryl muttered a "thank God" under his breath and Rick, being close enough to hear the younger man's words, smirked. Daryl was normally so aloof, his demeanor that of a feral lone wolf, and it cracked Rick up to see him so wound tight.

He tried to ignore the pull in his gut and thudding in his chest that reminded him just how equally affected Rick was by their proximity.

"Now, Rick," Hershel started, shifting his weight to angle the needle in Rick's tapered flesh. His voice became serious once more. "This news is deeply unsettling, and worries me a great deal between this herd and these men you ran into."

Rick tried to listen intently, but his battered shoulder was pulling at his attention, muscles twitching each time the needle plunged into his skin. Daryl's hands tightened their grip on his body and Rick couldn't keep himself from recalling the feel of these same hands on his skin, featherlight and maddeningly teasing trails of strange burning need into his arms just yesterday. Swallowing his embarrassing memory, Rick tried to sit still under Daryl's firm grip.

"It's does my heart no comfort knowing these men are now dead - "

Daryl's head jerked up, eyes blazing and interrupting. "I ain't sorry they're dead. They deserved what they got."

Hershel looked from him to Rick and tried to ease Daryl's snarl. "I'm sure they did. I'm just trying to consider the ramifications if their comrades find them dead on the side of the road somewhere. Did you at least hide any indication that you two were involved?"

Shrugging, Daryl hung his head and told Hershel about the arrow still lodged in the one man's skull and how they had to make a quick escape due to the walker horde. Hershel grew grave as he tied the end of the dental thread into a miniscule knot, Rick's skin now laced together properly, and began dressing Rick's stitches with gauze. The candles flickered in the room, adding an eerie atmosphere to already tense retelling of Rick and Daryl's story.

"What do you propose we do, Rick?" Hershel asked, looking to their leader.

Rick's eyes rose from examining his bandage to looking between his two companions, considering exactly what he wanted to do. "We're gonna barricade what we can - the fences, the towers, everything, and keep everyone inside the walls except for runs and hunts. I don't want anyone getting blindsided out in the yard or in the forest like me n' Daryl were."

"Are we going to tell the others?" Hershel questioned.

"I think it'd be a bad idea not to."

Hershel raised his hands, almost pleading with Rick. "I agree that they need to know, Rick, but please. Consider doing it after Thanksgiving."

Taken aback, Rick's brow furrowed at the gray man. "What if we don't get that long?"

"Like you said, we'll barricade what we can," Hershel insisted, continuing to argue against telling their family of the two men and their Governor. Rick couldn't fathom keeping everyone unaware of a potential threat, but felt like he knew why Hershel was so determined about it. "Please, Rick. Thanksgiving's just a few days away and I'd hate to see all this cheer go to waste. We haven't had something to look forward to in who knows how long."

That was it, Rick knew. This desperation for normalcy had everyone in better spirits since their time on the Greene farm and Rick found himself torn in crushing them with reality or not. Practicality and sentimentality were at war now, and Rick tried to weigh the pros and cons of each, leaning back to consider where Hershel was coming from.

On the one hand, it was dangerous to let their guard down and lose their edge, a fact made very clear in his outing with Daryl, proof that the unknown would take advantage in their happy bliss. On the other hand, Rick couldn't bring himself to regret his and Daryl's time together and the closeness it brought, peril be damned. It wasn't a feeling Rick was acquainted with any more and was dying to embrace it, this overwhelming sensation dammed by Rick's preservation of the unknown. To take this happiness away from his family felt cruel.

"What do you think?" Rick asked, turning to his friend next to him on his bed.

Daryl had long since put plenty of room between them but remained seated on the cot. He pulled his knee up and laced his fingers around it, looking thoughtful, and eventually answered, "Ain't much reason to keep fighting if ya ain't got nothin' to fight for."

Rick was momentarily shocked at his answer and how out of character it seemed for him. When they had first met, Daryl had come off as little more than a feral dog who only knew survival for survival's sake. Whatever had changed him, Rick was incredibly grateful for it. He vaguely wondered if whatever it was that had moved Daryl was what was currently moving Rick, as curious as it was, and his heart leaped at the idea.

"'Sides, we don't have the ammo to equip everyone with firepower anymore," Daryl noted, leaning back next to Rick with a grunt.

Sighing, Rick turned his head to him and said, "So, what, we keep them in the dark?"

"I ain't sayin' that." Shrugging, Daryl bit at his thumb cuticle in his stress and Rick resisted the sudden urge to stop him, baffled by where that compulsion came from. "It's up to you, man. I'll be there with ya to tell 'em if that's what yer gonna do, though."

There was a warmth flowing from Rick's chest to his small smile and he couldn't keep looking at Daryl. He noticed Hershel's onlooking, wrinkled face watching their interaction, but was feeling too dizzy to care much. It wasn't often that Rick heard someone support him so unconditionally, and he couldn't fight the sensation blossoming in his heart at the faith in him. It wasn't that Rick begrudged Lori, Shane, Glenn, Hershel, everybody for constantly second guessing him and had even come to expect it thrown from every direction relentlessly, but it was always astounding how loyal Daryl was to him.

It was that same warmth that made up Rick's mind.

"Alright," he emit, exhaling through his nose and already starting to worry over his decision. "We won't tell them yet. We'll wait until after Thanksgiving, after we've got more ammo and gun power. No sense in causing a fuss when we don't even have enough weapons to go around."

Relief flooded Hershel's face and he beamed at the two on the bed, collecting his medical supplies to leave now that he heard Rick's judgement. "Thank you, Rick. I'll come around sometime tomorrow to check your stitches. Try and stay off that arm, alright? Don't want you ripping them, it doesn't seem like either of you want to be doing this again."

Rick and Daryl looked at each other and quickly turned away at Hershel's words, causing the old man to chuckle deeply as he gathered himself onto his crutches and left the cell. The two men sat in silence, alone with the baby at the side of the bed, and Rick cleared his throat awkwardly.

"You really think this is a good idea?"

Daryl was quiet for a moment, still keeping his eyes from Rick and still chewing on his thumb. "Think we'll find out."

Scoffing, Rick tilted his head back and closed his eyes. "Can't say that helps much."

"What, you want a hug instead?" Rick didn't have to see the other man to know he was smirking and grinned back, knocking his elbow into Daryl's side playfully. He could always count on Daryl to joke around and spit sarcasm at the worst of moments, when Rick needed a straight answer, though he couldn't bring himself to consider it a fault.

"Pfft, do you even know what those are?"

Daryl elbowed Rick back, gentle and considerate of Rick's injured arm, saying, "What's it to you, Grimes?"

Rick opened his eyes and turned his head to face Daryl, basking in that strange happiness that filled him in these moments. He didn't respond, instead falling back into silence, albeit far more comfortable than moments ago, and just gazed at his companion. Daryl was watching him as well through his sharp eyes and dangling bangs, looking guarded yet expectant. There was a churning in Rick's stomach that he couldn't quite ignore as he gradually leaned in, Daryl tensing and remaining as still as a statue.

The two nearly jumped out of their skins at the sound of Judith crying herself awake, needing some kind of attention.

Releasing a heavy breath he didn't know he was holding, Rick hurriedly leaned forward and plucked his noisy daughter from her crib, cradling her in his good arm tenderly. There was some movement to his left as Daryl scooted to the edge of the bunk, hunched over and awkward and avoiding Rick's eyes all over again.

"You want me to take her?" he offered, twiddling his thumbs.

Rick felt something sinking in him and tried to ignore the odd disappointment in his stomach. "Nah, man, I got her. Why don't you go get some sleep?"

Daryl shook his head jerkily and got up, stretching his arms up until his back popped. "Don't need it. If you got Asskicker, I'm gonna head out and take tonight's watch." Rick wanted to protest, to argue for Daryl's health, but he knew exactly where he'd get for all his efforts and shut his mouth. Instead, he opted to rock Judith to calm her and watched Daryl start towards the door, touching Rick's bedside table as he walked away.

Before Daryl stepped through his cell door, Rick called out tentatively, "Goodnight, Daryl." The man stopped in the doorway at Rick's soft-spoken words, but didn't turn to face him before he departed.

"G'night."

Somewhat sullen, Rick cradled his baby back to sleep, her teary hiccups slowing until they ceased entirely. With his daughter finally back dozing in his arm, Rick got up, feeling overwhelmingly restless, and walked a small circle around his cell until something small caught his eye. It was where Daryl had grazed his nightstand. Curious, Rick drew closer until, with a fluttering heart, he realized why Daryl had reached out to touch the table.

Two tiny little ibuprofen pills, indistinct and unassuming, lay on the table's surface like much a welcomed and much needed hug.


	12. Preparations

.:Preparations:.

If Rick had made himself scarce over the next few days, he would tell himself that it was for no other reason than the holidays. If he had bothered to give himself the time to think, he would insist that this busywork was nothing short of necessary thanks to the impending threat of another camp. Hell, if he had stopped for even a second, he would say that his racing mind and body had nothing to do with a certain companion of his.

But Rick was nothing if not an honest man, and so he kept himself busy.

Thanks to his idle heart and jittery hands, menial chores around the prison were taken care of in mere hours - the hills were hoed and tilled, the floors were swept and cleaned, and Judith's cries were hushed and soothed. Rick found peace of mind in the labor of fortifying their chain link fences and walkways with planks of hardwood and plywood, turning away help when it was offered and shrugging off inquisitive glances as they were thrown. The last thing Rick wanted right now was to talk. It had never been his forte anyway, and in the state of mind that he was currently in, Rick couldn't hold himself above saying the wrong thing. If his history throughout his marriage held any pattern to it, Rick knew that saying the wrong thing in a time of trepidity was almost a sure fire habit of his, and so he kept his mouth shut and his hands busy and shooed away any comforting claims.

It was pleasantly laborious the days before Thanksgiving as Rick walled off certain areas outside of the prison, using sheet metal, spare fencing, anything to try any barricade their home. Keeping his loved ones in the dark about the opposing gang of survivors wore weary in his heart, but taking precautionary measures helped to put Rick at ease. He hated the idea of being caught unaware again and took pleasure in coming up with ways to fortify themselves, painstakingly inclined to be prepared for whatever crept in their looming future.

Even before the turn of humanity a year and a half ago, Rick was meticulous in his readiness. He always believed that success was only found when preparation met opportunity, but now more so than ever, laxity was a danger to one's health anymore.

Negligence was a luxury of the past, not meant for this new world.

Daryl was also hard at work, setting up various traps for both meat and potential threats. He laced the air with strands of metal, coils of fishing cable and piano wire low enough to trip a walker and high enough to kill a human, or at the very least blind or cripple one. The terrain beyond the fence was freckled with pitfalls, which the hunter then filled with bits of barbed wire, and Daryl had to tread carefully to weave through his man-made traps. Nylon corded snares were left dangling unobtrusively through the trees, too high for any animal, and Rick had to wonder the lengths they would all go to survive.

The answer was pretty clear as the nooses swayed in the cold breeze, foreboding and unassuming.

Rick watched the other man work, stomach churning, as he set his hammer down and took a break from his lattice of wood and metal patchwork around the prison. The material was thick enough to prevent most bullets from penetrating their fortress, but Rick couldn't help but worry over the gang's apparent excess of firepower as he remembered the AK-47 the dead man wielded. He was painfully aware of their own lack of weaponry, taking a quick mental stock of their diminishing supplies, and resolved to plan a quick outing sometime before Thanksgiving, as immediate as that was. The days after his and Daryl's run in with the offending men were the tensest, their adrenaline like live wires in their blood at any sudden sound or movement beyond the safety net of their chain fence, and Rick could only hope that between his and Daryl's handiwork, perhaps the prison looked even more abandoned and decayed if not ominous and threatening.

Hope was a bittersweet thing, Rick thought stormily as he watched Daryl duck under invisible wires, sweat glistening on his neck despite the chilly weather. The younger man started creating an inconspicuous walkway of rocks and dirt were there was no risk of running face first into thin, cutting steel wires, seemingly unaware of Rick's scrutiny.

His gunmetal eyes scoured Daryl's figure. Hardly any of his tanned skin was exposed today, instead covered against the brisk air, and Rick forced himself to be grateful for that. He didn't enjoy the guilt that came from watching Daryl's firm biceps flex with work, the cord of muscle in his neck shudder when he swallowed or spoke, the thin strip of foreign pale skin taut and coiled just over the hem of his jeans when he stretched. It made Rick feel nauseated with confusion and fault in checking out his best friend, who likely would have cuffed him if he found out.

_Oh hell._

Rick froze when Daryl raised his head, thin eyes finding his immediately, and Rick felt a shameful heat rising from his neck to his ears which the glint of cobalt blue followed. He looked away just a heartbeat later, but not after meeting Rick's unabashed gaze once more. Rick's growing body heat left with Daryl's attention and he felt cold, far colder than he had been a minute ago, and an ice settled in his bones as Rick turned away as well and inadvertently landed on Lori's empty grave.

Frowning, he picked up his hammer to resume his work, the loud clangs of the materials almost enough to drown the tumultuous shame prickling his back where Lori's tomb watched on.

The days had been busy just before Thanksgiving, a parallel of the old world that Rick might have found funny if he wasn't so stressed, and it made the time fly in ways the group was no longer used to. Carol, Hershel, everyone was beside themselves with delight when Rick told them about the greenhouse filled with ripening produce just a few miles away. For the rest of them, it only heightened their holiday cheer as they planned out a run to gather what they could, Hershel insisting that they might be able to transfer some of the greenery to the prison to start their own garden, but to Rick it was no more than added weight and another reason to worry.

To top it off, Maggie announced that she and Glenn would be making a run into town, and Rick swore he could nearly feel his back breaking from the weight of his worries.

"Whatever it is you're wanting, can't it wait until after Thanksgiving?" Rick tried to reason, knowing it didn't amount to much when Maggie involved herself. That woman was sweet enough when she wanted to be, but was just as headstrong as her daddy and had a bit of her Irish temperament to boot. "It's literally just a couple of days from now."

"A couple of days from now will be too late!" she insisted, eyes alight with something devious.

Rick closed his eyes and exhaled, feeling his patience running uncharacteristically thin. "Can you at least tell me what you need? Maybe I can stop by on our run to the greenhouse."

"Nuh-uh," she shook her head, short hair tossing around her face in defiance. There was a playful note to her tone, one that didn't come around as often as it used to, but Rick couldn't be bothered to appreciate it at the moment. What he appreciated was her staying safe. "It's a surprise, one I think you might enjoy, too," she grinned, crossing her arms over her chest firmly.

Clenching his jaw, Rick looked to Glenn who was watching on in amusement, clearly enjoying someone else having to put up with his girlfriend's stubborn streak. His grin fell from his boyish face when Rick turned to him, and he immediately plastered on a look of ignorance.

"Don't look at me," said Glenn innocently, shaking his head. "I have no idea what she wants."

Maggie chimed playfully, "Ain't that the truth."

At that, there was a wave of good humor flowing through their group as Glenn and Maggie bantered harmlessly back and forth, the entirety of their people situated in the dining area. They had gathered, with their leader present for the first time in days, to discuss the run to the greenhouse which Rick had decided would consist of him, Hershel, and Oscar. Rick had wanted most of their able-bodied people to stay back with the rest of them, because preparing for the worst was a cop-instilled habit of his. Only now, Maggie was blindsiding him with a sudden trip to the local grocery store not ten miles away, and Rick didn't know if the gray hairs this was surely costing him was worth the surprise she had planned.

As Rick considered this, the chatter around him continued save for Carl, who didn't quite seem to understand what they were fighting about but laughed with everyone else anyway, and Daryl, who stayed back seated on the steps and observed Rick. Nobody else seemed to even notice how tense he was.

"No," Rick interrupted suddenly, all eyes on him now. A hush fell around him and Maggie's brows knit together in dissension, her thin hands dropping to her hips, and Rick felt guilty for the look of confusion on her face.

"Pardon?"

Rick stood firm, as firm as he could with the disappointment spreading all over her. "I said 'no'."

"Why?" This time, the questioning came from Glenn, who looked just as crestfallen as Maggie. Rick glanced at Hershel, sobered and sitting with Beth and Carol, and took a breath to keep himself from breaking his promise to the old man Greene. He knew he wasn't being fair to the two younger adults, as they were both far too old to be hearing someone tell them 'because I said so', but Rick found himself lost on trying to come up with a better reason.

"Doesn't feel right," Rick offered lamely, watching the disappointment in Maggie's face meld into something more frustrated.

"We can handle ourselves out there, you know that," insisted Maggie, a slight pout to her face. Rick had expected this reaction, this questioning, and wish he could give them the answers they deserved. "S'hardly any different than runs we've done before."

Hershel stepped in, clearly used to his eldest daughter's heurism, and chided, "Now Maggie, we need to trust Rick. If he doesn't say it's right with just the two of you out there, then - "

"Rick," Glenn was quick to interrupt, face growing serious as he eyed Rick. "Is there something going on?"

Glenn was a sharp kid, and Rick respected him greatly for that, as inconvenient as it was at the moment. With a pounding heart, Rick swallowed thickly, unable to flat out lie to his comrade and instead tried to avoid the question entirely. "I just don't like the idea of you two bein' out there alone. What if something happens?"

Maggie's face was calculating, eyes narrowed and supple bottom lip between her teeth, and Rick knew that wasn't going to be enough for her. A moment later, she opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by a voice from the back which drew the firing squad off of Rick for the time being.

"I'll go with 'em."

Rick turned around to face the source of the deep sound, still seated on the steps onlooking, and Daryl's sharp eyes were still on him meaningfully. "Daryl…" Rick trailed, knowing there wasn't any argument against the hunter going out.

"That's perfect!" Maggie lit up, all shades of doubt gone from her face and replaced by a newly found excitement. "You can help us with the surprise!"

Daryl scoffed, apparently far less amused than the farm girl was as he dragged his eyes away from Rick and to the young couple listlessly. "Do I look like the type who likes surprises?"

"Oh, you will," promised Maggie, impish all over again.

Hauling himself to his feet, Daryl approached Rick casually while the group resumed their chatter, his hands deep in his front pockets, and asked, "This alright by you?"

Rick chuckled humorlessly and pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes, rubbing away the worry and frustration and finding it in him to welcome at least someone asking his opinion. "Does it matter?"

Daryl was quick and firm in his response. "Yes."

Sighing, Rick lowered his hands and looked up at Daryl, too weary and tired to offer a smile. "Just keep 'em safe."

The younger man nodded and Rick gave him a light companionable pat on the shoulder, hardly caring at Daryl's usual reaction and instead heading straight for bed. Tomorrow at dawn, he, Hershel, and Oscar would leave for the small suburban town adorned with an abundance of berries and, Rick hoped to himself as he undid his jeans for bed, a lack of walkers and humans alike.

As his head hit the pillow, Rick exhaled his worries, trying his best not to focus on the fact that other survivors were now starting to become just as much a danger as the threat of the walking dead. Instead, he let his mind wander and nearly regretted it when his thoughts settled firmly on Daryl.

Daryl.

Just what was this man to him? A companion? A fellow walker-killer? Someone he had managed to coexist with for a year and a half? That alone was impressive, Rick mused, considering his spotty relationship with nearly everyone else with in the group. Hell, even his own best friend, wife, son couldn't maintain such a natural, easy-going pace with him. It seemed to be a fight, every day, with all of his loved ones.

Rick thought back to their meeting, seeing Daryl come out of the brush and expecting hell from this blonde angel upon explaining what happened to his brother. And for a while, hell is exactly what he got from the younger man, spitting and feral and justified, and it killed Rick to see him so lost and hurt. Their relationship had been tense, turbulent at first while Daryl hid behind the image his brother had constructed for him, spitting out empty threats and hollow slurs that Merle had so carefully taught him to mimic. It made Rick nervous at first, this wild card of a man and self-proclaimed Merle Jr., and for a while Rick instinctively had his hand at his holster around this Daryl Dixon.

But the two almost immediately and naturally grew a respect for each other forged in hell itself, unshakeable and very much unlike anything Rick had felt before. It was terrifying that he saw so much of himself in this spitting, violent redneck, thrilling to have him at his back in battle, relieving to have someone he didn't feel like he needed to say the right thing to. From the start, Daryl saw through all of the airs Rick had to put on for the sake of social graces, and Rick's lungs became slowly, so slowly, addicted to the feel of breathing in oxygen not polluted with expectations or demands.

Daryl.

He was addicted to this man, one way or another. Rick couldn't even begin to fathom when it had started, he could hardly even believe it now, but clearly Lori and Shane had caught on to something, privy to these strange highs Rick got around Daryl.

How long had Rick stayed oblivious to his own intoxication, his own need for the air that Daryl provided?

Searching for Sophia, going on hunts, Daryl getting shot -

Rick's stomach churned at the memory. Daryl, bloodied and broken, emerging from the brush and looking like hell a hundred times over. Daryl, standing as tall and boldly as he could in the face of Rick's approach, trying to hide his limp and his grieving arrow wound with all the pride he could muster. Daryl, sassing him one second, eyes alive and seeing straight past Rick's Colt into his core, then recoiling and losing all fight in an instant, reeling from the bullet and hitting the ground the next second. In that moment, Rick shattered utterly and his blood seemed to disappear from his veins, leaving him empty and hollow. It took only a second to register what had happened, seeing the hunter collapsed in the dirt so lifelessly, and Rick remembered fearing the worst. He had turned towards the gunfire, unable to see who it was and unable to care, and bellowed as loud as he could, 'no'.

He didn't know when any of this had started, whatever this strange addiction was, but Rick loved it. It terrified him how much he loved it.

Though he wouldn't dare risk venturing further into this feeling. Rick had a strange inkling that whatever was happening to him, whatever was causing his heart to tighten and mind to wander, it probably wasn't appropriate for a best friendship. At forty years old, Rick was self-aware enough for that, at least. Especially considering this was towards Daryl, what's likely the least affectionate person Rick had ever met, these were definitely not tendrils of desire to be explored.

Daryl.

It was embarrassing just how much this man affected him, Rick mused, curling up under the blankets and tugging them over his head to warm his ears. Rick didn't exactly mind the idea of two men together having relations or being a couple or anything, but it's not like Rick ever imagined he would feel anything towards another man. It just wasn't him, wasn't Rick Grimes.

Back in middle school, when Shane was sneaking pornos from his dad's stash under the bed for them to watch together, Rick found himself occasionally glancing at the men. It was out of curiosity, he had reasoned mentally, and started jacking it when he saw the man finally climax in the film. It wasn't a big deal to him because the whole point of porn, he thought, was to get off here and there. But after a while, Shane seemed to pick up on it and stopped inviting him over to watch together.

Even still, in this moment, Rick didn't really think anything of it. Pornography was just overly sexualized all around, the men included, and it didn't really bother Rick that he used to get off watching men orgasm.

That didn't mean he cared for men one way or another, and he never had before. There was no room in the image both his dad and Shane had constructed for him. Rick had always been aware that his old man and best friend had a mold that they were fitting him to, an expectation to live up to and a standard to uphold, and thus he started dating a girl who had been mooning over him for months, his one and only major girlfriend and partner, Lori Henson.

Once he married her, both his pa and his best friend had been so proud of him. He was, essentially, a man now, like his whole identity had been riding on marrying the perfect gal. Shane was his best man at their wedding and told Rick what a lucky sum'bitch he was for finding him a girl like that, and if only Shane could be so lucky. His father gave him his approval and his blessing as he started his life as a new man, devoted to the perfect housewife. Hell, even Lori had developed an image for him to fit, shoes for him to fill, as the perfect husband she so desperately longed for. And Rick worked his ass off, day and night, to provide that existence for her until he was dead on the inside fourteen years later.

Rick peeked his head out from under the covers, struggling to breathe, and sucked in the icy night air into his lungs. He thumbed at his wedding band again, quickly becoming a guilty habit, and felt a pang of bitterness chewing him up inside.

After going through so much hell together, both before the apocalypse and after, Rick was utterly spent. He was sick of fitting into her ideal image for him, never feeling like he was enough to keep her happy, and was so drained of having to be something, someone, else. It was almost, almost, a relief when the world changed, because Rick thought for just a moment that he might shuck the facades created for him and be his own man, a chance to flourish in his own identity.

But between Lori and Shane, he was given hell for it.

He missed them, both of them, despite their faults and misgivings and sheer anguish they caused him in the end. But Rick didn't miss the expectations, and felt near liberated in some sick, twisted way. Lately, he had been considering taking his wedding ring off, for whatever that meant to the world, but he couldn't bring himself to throw away the last bit of his wife. The guilt of it all tore at him, and he swallowed his thoughts, his memories, his unnamed feelings towards Daryl, and settled into his uncomfortable, poorly-fitted mold.


	13. Secrets

.:Secrets:.

Sleep had not come easy, what with all of his excitement, and finally Carol came in from her overnight watch to tell them that the sun was up, strap the guns on, time to go! Her voice was exhausted and face withered as she slumped towards her cell, completely oblivious to the flutter of sheets being thrown off and ecstatic movement filling the cell. He was practically humming with excitement, as Rick had everyone locked down for quite a while, and couldn't keep from jostling his sleeping girlfriend as he rose from bed.

Glenn quickly threw off his flannel pj's and grabbed a different set of clothes from his pile of various garments, ones less caked with sweat and grime but still far from being 'clean', as his girlfriend would tell him. He turned to look at her as she groaned sleepily, clearly disturbed by his manic mood, and smiled at her brightly.

"'Morning, Maggie," he chirped, sliding his arms through his shirt before maneuvering his head through.

Maggie moaned at him again, pulling the covers up to her head. "What time is it, babe?" she slurred drowsily, rolling on her side away from her boyfriend. Glenn rolled his eyes a bit at her - for someone who was usually a morning person, his girlfriend could sure be hard to wake up sometimes. And she couldn't have picked a worse morning to sleep like a rock, he wanted to get going!

"Time to gear up, that's what time it is!" Glenn bounced on the balls of his feet, trying to warm up his legs as he threw on his jacket. Man, he was nearly ready and Maggie wasn't even out of bed yet. He stopped and wondered vaguely if this is what dating her in the old days would have been like, when waking up early could have been as harmless as them going out for coffee. A supply run was nothing more than a quick trip to the grocery store for dinner, back when surviving simply meant delivering pizzas for a living. Would they have ever even met if not for the living corpses plaguing the earth?

Some things aren't meant to be answered, Glenn concluded and shook his musings away. None of it mattered, anyway, because all they had were the hands that had been dealt to them - meaning no coffee, no shopping, and most certainly no pizza.

_Pizza_...

Glenn groaned inwardly at the thought while in the middle of lacing his shoes. It was way too early to be getting this deep, not on top of being this hungry as well. He looked back to his girlfriend, unsurprised that she hadn't moved from her sleeping position on the bed, and thought that as far as apocalypses go, he could've been dealt worse cards, really. Maybe they'd get lucky at the supermarket Maggie was taking them to and he could surprise her with a box of condoms or something. They were running alarmingly low on their current stash, and damn it all if Glenn couldn't at least hold on to some sort normalcy in their relationship.

"We're gonna be late, Mags!" Glenn finished tying his shoes and stood up, alive and ready for something other than these stale prison walls.

"Hnng," she heaved, folding the pillow over her ear.

Exasperated, Glenn marched over to her and pulled back the sheets, to which she jumped and curled up against the cold and peered up at him in annoyance. "What're you going on about?"

Glenn couldn't help the bemused face he made at his silly girlfriend. "Uh, our busy day. C'mon, Daryl's probably already waiting for us!"

Clarity blossomed on her pretty features and her annoyance quickly evaporated into an eagerness to match his own. She got up and at 'em hastily enough and undressed, tossing aside her clothes, to which Glenn grinned and said, "Well, good morning to you, too." She scoffed and tossed a balled up shirt at him, laughing when it nailed him in his smirking face, and finished dressing.

"Ya should've woken me up sooner," scolded Maggie, yanking a brush through her bedhead to try and keep her hair somewhat manageable. At least with Rick's temporary incarceration of everyone, she didn't have to worry about picking muck and gore out of her hair lately. Always find the bright side of things.

Glenn's face was mystified in response, and his voice incredulous. "You're kidding."

Maggie laughed, a pretty sound in the echoing room, and set down her mangey brush to wrap her arms around her boyfriend's neck. "I'm kidding," she concurred, giving him a quick 'good morning' kiss. Pulling back, she winced slightly and said, "Maybe let's find some mouthwash, hon."

She finished getting ready and they left the cell together, hand in hand, and Glenn couldn't help his growling stomach. "Not before we find some food."

Daryl was there in the dining area, alone and waiting, with an opened can of tomato soup in his hands. Steam was wisping through the icy morning air from the can and Glenn's stomach lurched enviously - it sure wasn't pizza, but it was something. The hunter nodded at the two as they entered and he took another swig from the tin, looking them up and down from over the soup can with his keen eyes. Those very eyes used to unnerve Glenn, he remembered sheepishly, back when he was mind-deep in old beliefs and reservations. Back when he was just 'the Chinaman'. But now, after Daryl had saved their lives and risked his own repeatedly for them, Glenn felt a sense of comfort around those weird, perceptive eyes.

"Hey, Daryl!" Glenn rang, smiling at the older man. His voice reverberated back to them, and Daryl winced slightly and his volume.

Maggie squeezed Glenn's hand before walking towards their meager storage of food, trying to find whatever canned something suited her fancy. "G'morning, partner," she greeted, smiling over to Daryl who swallowed his ketchup-y mouthful and said 'hey' in return. "You excited for your surprise, yet?"

Snorting derisively into his soup, Daryl threw it back and downed the rest, wiping his mouth with his sleeve when he was finished and tossing the can towards the trash. He smirked at her as she settled on a couple of cans and said, "Thrilled."

Glenn took the can of peas offered to him, irrationally disappointed that it wasn't something hot and delicious like pizza, and looked for a can opener. He was surprised when Daryl offered him his knife, muttering something about Carol rearranging things and him not knowing where any of this shit was anymore. Laughing, Glenn took it gratefully and stabbed the can open, jiggling it around until there was a hole at the top and trying not to look too inept at this.

"Don't hurt yerself," Daryl smirked as Glenn tried to mimic the opening in Daryl's soup can. "Can't go fer a run with you bleeding out."

"I think I know how to open a can with a knife." Scoffing, Glenn continued to jimmy the knife around in the tin until he pretended to be satisfied with his handiwork. Then he gave the blade to Maggie, who started working on her own can. "Let me know if you need help, babe."

"Think I can manage," Maggie finished with ease, grinning at him lightheartedly and handing the knife back to Daryl. The two finished their paltry breakfast while Daryl prepared the weapons - his crossbow, two large hunting knives, a crowbar, and two handguns with one clip of ammo each. Naturally, Daryl shouldered his crossbow and its half a dozen arrows, leaving the rest for Maggie and Glenn who quickly suited up.

Armed and fed, the three wasted no time in making their leave and headed out of the prison, deciding quickly to take the old Chevy Camaro as their ride. It was the fastest vehicle they had at the moment and Daryl wanted to leave the Ford pickup for Rick's group outing. Glenn wasn't one to argue, as he himself had found the car a few months back and loved the thing dearly. It would have been a stallion in its prime, but time and hell on earth had ravaged it for its aesthetics and torque. All things said and done, though, he was insanely proud of this find.

"I'm driving," he announced, all grinning and cocky, and damn near skipped to the driver's side expectantly.

"Pffft." Daryl shook his head, smirking as he produced the keys to the car and Glenn deflated with a "friggen a-". He held them up and jingled them mockingly as he approached the driver's side, hip bumping Glenn out of the way in a rare show of victory. "Don't think so, little man. Early bird gets the car."

Heaving a sigh, Glenn trotted to the passenger side of the car. "Fine. But I call shotgun. And, I get to drive on the way back."

"We'll see." Daryl chuckled at Glenn's attempt to be domineering and unlocked the car to slide inside, starting it up once he arranged the seat. Glenn sat in the passenger side and watched Maggie run to the gate to unchain it and heft it open for them to pass through. The path outside was relatively void of walkers, save for a couple geeks near the forest line that must have been drawn by the Camaro's engine, and Maggie quickly shut the gate once they were through.

Glenn smiled as he watched her, hair flinging in the chilly wind and arms forcing the chain closed, but caught sight of someone walking down the prison hill in his sideview mirror. It was Axel, bright and early, and sluggishly making his way to the guard tower for his morning watch. As with Rick's mounting security, this didn't sit well with the Korean man and he had to wonder just what had spooked Rick into all of these old defensive measures. They hadn't had a series of guard shifts for a few good months, believing they had finally found sanctuary in this unexpected place, and the fact that Rick started it again so abruptly wasn't lost on Glenn.

"Daryl?" Glenn started, turning from the mirror to look at the hunter.

"Ya ain't driving."

"Yeah, whatever," he dismissed with reproach, like a child being scolded yet again, and continued to buckle up. The hunter was watching the two walkers creep towards them as Maggie weaved the chain in between the metal links of the fence, and Glenn tried to broach the other man again as they waited. "You know what's going on with Rick, don't you?"

Daryl visibly tensed at the question and nibbled his bottom lip, never taking his eyes off the walking corpses, and remained silent. Glenn closed his eyes and sighed - of course Daryl knew what was going on with Rick. He _always_ knew what was going on with Rick, it seemed like. It made Glenn wonder if that's why Daryl had volunteered to go with him and Maggie today in the first place, and made sense why Rick didn't protest them leaving once Daryl was involved. As frustrating as this stoic man was, like literally _all the time_, Glenn couldn't help but appreciate him staying with them. He was part of the family, a central part that Rick couldn't seem to deny like he could everyone else. Like the parental figures, Glenn thought with mirth, and cracked a grin at the thought. Glenn had never thought of Daryl as 'motherly' or 'nurturing', but he was clearly the mother hen to Rick's patriarch.

Grinning avidly, Glenn turned back to Daryl who was now lighting a cigarette and puffing on it, keeping his gaze away from Glenn's pestering face and towards the windshield. "Hey, Daryl."

"What?" Daryl growled around the filter, puffing smoke in Glenn's direction without actually sparing him a glance.

_Maybe he's not that motherly_, Glenn thought and swatted away at the cloud of heavy vapor in his face, smile faltering as he quickly decided against mentioning it to him. Daryl never seemed to take well to other people commenting about his and Rick's dynamic in the group, and Glenn probably risked a black eye or two by calling him a 'mother hen'. Though, for sure, he'd bring it up to Maggie later when they were both out of danger of the infamous Dixon temper.

"Uh, nothing," Glenn trailed off, changing gears back towards his initial thought. "But… Is Rick ever going to tell us what's going on?"

At this, Daryl finally let his incisive eyes flicker towards Glenn and took a long drag on his cigarette butt, letting the smoke pour from his nostrils and filling the car with a fog before he answered. It made Glenn's sensitive eyes water, but he kept them focused on Daryl in search of an answer.

"You gotta trust him," Daryl finally said tightly.

Glenn opened his mouth to push further, unsatisfied with that, but Daryl spoke first to cut him off. "The man's gotten us this far, he ain't gonna let anything happen if he has a say in it. 'N he always does."

Daryl was watching the walkers again as Maggie finished with the lock and trotted to the car, all smiles. "If there is a problem, ya need to trust that Rick's going to do right by us, best he can." The hunter took one last inhale of smoke before grounding the cherry red ash into the dashboard, putting out his cigarette and buckling his seatbelt. "'N the 'best he can' should be damn terrifying to anyone dumb enough ta cross him."

Silence fell between the two men as Maggie swung the rear door open, the walkers shambling too close behind her for Glenn's comfort, and slid in. Buckling up excitedly, she glanced up at the men and seemed to feel the weight heavy in the air between them mixed in with the smog.

"Did I miss something?" she asked. "What were you boys going on about?"

Peering back at her through the rearview mirror, Daryl quirked his lips upwards and said, "How you sure like to take yer sweet ass time with that gate. Christ, woman, we're burning daylight here." Glenn choked back a laugh and Daryl pulled out of park now that they were all situated and drove off, careful not to disturb any of his traps as they hit the main road.

"Well, _sorry_," she huffed at his sass. "Next time you can just drive right on through, then."

The drive was short enough, mainly filled with Maggie's navigating, and they eventually pulled up to the abandoned grocery store. As playful as they were, now was all business and the time to sober up, so they parked close enough to the entrance, readied their weapons, finetuned their senses.

* * *

><p>Glenn had a loose, comfortable grip on his knife hilt as he unbuckled his seatbelt and looked around on his side. "Clear over here," he announced.<p>

"We got one to the left," Maggie called out as they left the Camaro.

"Two to the front," Daryl responded, and the three of them made quick work of the walkers and cleared the perimeter. With that said and done, they tackled the store and found more geeks inside, going aisle by aisle to clear the place out until eventually it was safe enough to lower their weapons and relax a bit.

"Now just what the hell are we here for?" Daryl spat at a corpse, stepping over it and looking to Maggie, who was now coated in a fresh layer of decrepit mess. She pulled out a piece of paper with what appeared to be Carol's handwriting scribbled all over it and then looked up at the aisle indicators, mapping out what she needed and where before she answered him.

"Uh… Flour, sugar, various spices…" she read off, looking uncertain of some of the list items. "Pumpkin filling? Will that even be good anymore?" Daryl and Glenn shrugged, and Maggie continued. "Feminine hygiene, fertilizer, paint, and…" Maggie glanced up at them, grinning playfully in her dramatic pause, "Liquor!"

Daryl immediately brightened and said, "Now it's Thanksgiving. At least I'll have something to be thankful for."

"It'll be faster if we split up," Glenn started, but was cut off by Daryl quickly calling dibs on getting the alcohol and walking away towards the booze aisle. "Alright, then. I'll take the fertilizer and the… feminine… stuff." He winced, not even really knowing what that entailed, which Maggie laughed at.

"Why don't I take care of that?" she insisted, and Glenn was infinitely grateful to his girlfriend. It wouldn't have been his first time venturing down that particular area of the store, and probably wouldn't have been his last, but it was never something he could say he really enjoyed. Trying to pick this product or that, not even knowing what half of this stuff was, and grimacing when he found out always made him feel a little inadequate about running errands for the ladies. With their jobs sorted, Glenn and Maggie split up and ran to their respective aisles.

It took very little time for Glenn to heft out massive bags of fertilizer, though his body could only bear to lift one at a time anymore with the state it was in. After he had packed away four bags of the dirt into the trunk of the car, he figured they had enough to last them a while, even though in reality he had no idea. He was about as familiar with gardening as he was with feminine hygiene products.

With his work finished, he found himself joining Daryl in the liquor aisle, looking at the various different spirits and thinking back to his first time getting actually sloshed back at the CDC. His head throbbed at the memory of it and the morning after, how miserable he had been, and hoped Daryl wasn't going to get more wine or champagne. But he shook his head when he remembered who it was picking out their alcohol - Daryl didn't seem much like the fine wine type. Still, Glenn eyed the bottles of peach schnapps and coconut rum hungrily, finally settling on a cotton candy infused vodka. He reached for it, touching the smooth, dusty glass, and wondered if he could get away with saying it was for Maggie or something.

Looking around to make sure no one was watching, Glenn picked it up, feeling the heavy weight of the clear liquor slosh in his hands temptingly, and vaguely considered sliding it into his jacket. Glenn remembered having loved cotton candy and was dying to know what it tasted like with an added buzz to it, but knew none of the guys back at camp would let him live it down.

Hell, if Daryl knew he was even considering the sugary drink - Glenn hated to imagine the humiliation he'd be put through.

"Whatchya got there?"

Glenn jolted so far into the air that he nearly crash landed backwards at the hunter's voice, calling out to him from down towards the endcap of the shelves. He had quite a few bottles tucked under his arm already and started walking towards a red-faced Glenn, who quickly replaced the cotton candy vodka and grabbed the first bottle his groping hand found.

"Nothing! Just…" Glenn turned the bottle over to read it, wincing when he saw what was in his hands. "Red Hot Tabasco Bourbon. Sounds great."

His throat clenched at the sounds of this hellish drink, as there's nothing that could offend his palate more than spicy hard liquor, he imagined. Oh hell, thinking about the morning after a night of something called 'Red Hot Tabasco Bourbon' made him consider joining Hershel in his sobriety. All he wanted was a cotton candy induced intoxication. Daryl eyed the amber bottle in Glenn's hand, raising his brows at the clearly distressed Asian man next to him.

"Bourbon, huh? Didn't peg you as the type," Daryl admitted, grabbing the glass from Glenn's hands and turning it over in his palm. He placed it back on the shelf, to Glenn's pleasant surprise, and reached for a darker bottle instead.

"But if you want to get shitfaced, this is what you do it on," the hunter smirked as he grabbed a bottle of Wild Turkey whiskey. "That'll put some hair on yer chest." Daryl pressed the bottle to Glenn's ribs and shooed him back to the car to wait for Maggie while he continued to browse the old, dusty bottles. Glenn took the whiskey outside and mourned the missed chance to find out what cotton candy vodka tasted like. The real airy confection was a thing of the past, surely all dissolved to nothingness by now, and Glenn sighed and shoved it to the back of his mind where pizza and video games were stored nostalgically.

Moments later, he saw Maggie and Daryl emerge from the grocery store with paper bags filled to the brim with stuff, some of them looking incredibly heavy. Glenn quickly opened the trunk for them and piled everything in as a small gang of shambling, gurgling figures came down the street towards them. Daryl started up the engine, Glenn too nervous about the oncoming walkers to complain about their driving arrangements, and peeled out of the parking lot back towards home.

* * *

><p>By the time Rick pulled back into the camp, he and his two companions were covered in dirt and sweat with a touch of pink and purple tart to their lips. The mood was jovial, Oscar telling them about the last time he got to see the world beyond the prison walls, Hershel planning out their garden and what to grow in the winter season, and Rick finally relaxing enough to enjoy the company of his family.<p>

Axel pulled the gate open for them, the walkers around the prison far more numerous than when they had left, and Rick parked the Ford further up the hill for Hershel's sake. Between Rick and Oscar, the truck was unloaded of the foliage rather quickly and Hershel helped instruct them on what plants needed more sun than others and various other flora temperaments. The transferring of the produce couldn't actually be started until Daryl's group returned from their grocery run for fertilizer, but Rick got to work digging out a patch of soil large enough to house everything they managed to salvage. It wasn't going to be anything as fancy as a greenhouse, not yet anyway, but Rick had decided that in recent light of new dangers, it was best for them to have an immediate resource rather than have to go on runs every time they wanted something fresh to eat. Besides, as far as he was concerned, this really made the prison feel like home, solidified their fresh start.

Rick started a good distance from the empty graves atop the hill and dug outwards, creating a massive pit, the damp, upturned soil packed along the edges of his rectangular landscape while Hershel went inside and Oscar went to the guard tower for the beginning of his watch shift. Rick watched him go, taking comfort in the measures set to defend themselves, however small they were. The group had reacted poorly at first, baffled or pissed at his sudden rule set in place without much of an explanation other than, "I just don't want us losing our edge", but eventually settled into shifts without further fuss.

"Yo, Rick!"

Wiping the pouring sweat from his face, Rick looked up and saw Oscar gesturing at the gate and paused at the sound of the Camaro's engine approaching. The car itself made an appearance not a minute later and Rick tore down the hill to greet them, pulling the gate open while Oscar took out a walker trying to squeeze its way in. With everyone safe inside, Rick looped the padlock around the fence as the rumbling engine died, a thick stillness brimming with expectation filled the air.

The driver's side door opened and Daryl ducked out of the seat gracefully, eyes landing on Rick when he straightened and nodded to him. When Rick acknowledged him back, Daryl leaned down to pop the trunk and Rick eyed the paper bags within, feeling an excitement at their success and relief at their return.

"We come bearing gifts!" Glenn was smiling ear to ear as he got out and opened the door for Maggie.

Shaking his head, Rick strode to Daryl and asked, "Was it worth it?" His tone was playful for everyone else's sake, but his eyes held a seriousness only meant for Daryl and he hoped his friend was able to read the fine print of Rick's question. Daryl studied his face for a moment before shrugging and answered just as playfully.

"Any car ride with these two buffoons is gonna be trouble," Daryl smirked at him, jerking his thumb at the buffoons in question who glared at his back while they unloaded the trunk of the groceries. "But we managed."

Feeling his nerves stringing back together, Rick exhaled and smiled at Daryl, who turned away awkwardly and asked Rick if he needed help with the yard. Rick scanned his current progress and bit his cheek, trying to figure out just how the hell to make a garden work when his own home from before the Turn was adorned with fake, plastic greenery. A compromise between him and Lori so long ago, after repeated plant funerals from Lori's fruitless green thumb and Rick having to empty out the porcelain caskets, dirt and all. She had still insisted on having a beautiful shrubbery backdrop for their equally artificial lives, insisted on making burnt pancakes every Saturday morning that eventually just stayed cold and spongy on the counter, untouched.

Insisted on filling molds and playing roles, whatever their image needed them to be.

Rick shrugged and said, "Not 'less you know how to fashion some kinda canopy or awning. Can't see the crops dealing with snow all too well."

"Pffft, c'mon, Grimes," Daryl shouldered past him lightly, sounding nearly offended as he muttered smugly, "Be the best damn awning you'll ever see." Together, the two worked on the garden while Maggie and Glenn went inside with the groceries, Axel went to bed, and the rest of his family casually busied themselves. It seemed, as usual, it was Rick and Daryl with the dirty work.

For the most part, they worked in silence, Daryl crafting a makeshift canopy out of tarp and wood while Rick poured fertilizer into the trench. He would occasionally catch himself watching the hunter work, something that very rarely went unnoticed by the perceptive man, which in turn made the men quickly look away with Rick's head spinning. His mind was stuck and had been settled in this emotional rut since his realization the night before, the realization that Rick was clearly compelled to Daryl for more than just neighborly companionship. After he had promised himself to Lori, he never imagined himself with another person, as he took his marriage vows seriously. But when those crumbled around him, sifting through his desperate fingers, Rick understood now that he had been searching for more than just an outlet in Daryl. How long this had been going on without his cognizance made Rick's throat thick with guilt.

This wasn't something he wanted coming between him and Daryl, terrified that he would ruin a relationship he was in dire need of in his life, in this world. He needed Daryl, he knew, and risked everything by being careless with his feelings and developing some kind of strange, magnetic attraction that the younger would most definitely be appalled by. Betrayed, even, that his best friend, someone Daryl looked up to and respected, was secretly mooning after him, pining after him in private and ogling at him quite shamefully out of the corner of his eye. Rick turned his back to Daryl, leaning his weight on the rake and pressing his forehead to the back of his dirt-crusted gloves.

Thinking back to Merle and his bigotry, Rick couldn't imagine Daryl reacting in any other way than spitting rage or flying fists.

Rick shook his head sheepishly, flicking sweat from his beard and smearing dirt on his forehead as he did so - he knew better than to compare Daryl to his tilted brother and his prejudiced mindset. But despite how loving and compassionate Daryl was beneath his coarse exterior, it wasn't likely that he would accept Rick's painfully obvious feelings for him, much less reciprocate them. No, this was something he needed to swallow and bury, let die because it wasn't fair to Daryl, Lori, Shane, Carl, anybody except for him to have these electric, irresistible sensations and affections towards the other man. His own secret, dark and dirty, smothered and neglected. It was a bitter feeling, having to ignore such a thrilling surge of happiness and lightheaded elation Daryl gave him, reviving and resuscitating Rick's idle heart. But Rick would rather have suffered in silence than estrange Daryl.

These secrets were threatening to drown him.

"You okay?"

The voice behind him startled him and Rick jerked back to reality, turning painfully to look at Daryl and the impressive homemade canopy next to him. Rick hoped the smile he shot Daryl didn't look as hollow as it felt and carefully ignored the question by gesturing to the tarp awning and said, "Man, you weren't kidding. That's... That's great, Daryl."

Daryl kept his cat-like eyes on Rick who was still leaning against the rake and shrugged, dismissing Rick's deflection with one of his own. "Wouldn't be my first awning, anyway."

Something about Daryl's tone made Rick think back to their overnight stay in the Dodge Neon almost a week ago, something that had nagged at his conscious at the time. Rick had kept it under lock and key ever since, terrified of over analyzing one thing or another and fueling his unwieldily fantasies, seeing things that weren't there as irrational hope tended to do to a person. But now, with Daryl coming closer, his own heart thudding, he found that he couldn't keep the questions, the deafening demands urging him forward to Daryl, from his lips.

"Daryl -"

Before Rick could continue, before he could even catch his breath, he felt Daryl's hand on him, grazing his face, and his heart skipped a beat. He was frozen still, not wanting to interrupt the moment, some dizzying anticipation winding him and halting his buzzing mind, and watched Daryl as he reached up to Rick's forehead. His hand was cold, but welcome against Rick's flushing face and he parted his lips to suck in a much needed breath, feeling lightheaded. Daryl's eyes flickered to the movement, fingers pausing in their wiping the dirt off Rick's forehead, and Rick felt himself swaying.

Stunned, confused, Rick closed his eyes and let a wave of indulgence wash over him from Daryl's fingertips, trembling when Daryl ran the knuckle of his forefinger down his face with far more tenderness than he would have imagined from the hunter. There was something here, something palpable between them, and felt the sparks of some notion coming from Daryl, a sense of his intentions that left Rick strangely timid going forward. He had felt this design before, only once, resulting in his first kiss ever way back with Lori, but with Daryl, everything was shrouded in novelty and left Rick uncertain. Were these slight touches and imploring eyes indicative of... What?

Rick's heart rate thundered in his ears as he dared to think for just a moment that maybe Daryl was just as stricken as he was, indulged in the idea that this meant something. He exhaled a shaky breath, too scared to look at Daryl in fear of shattering this moment, and inched his head just slightly into the feel of Daryl's touch. He felt Daryl's hand pause in its descent, freezing up at Rick's tactile feedback, and Rick felt a surge of need for more.

"Rick?"

Hershel's voice snapped Rick out of his impulse, Daryl's hand jerking away like it had been electrocuted and Rick's eyes flicking open so fast that he was seeing stars. Daryl dropped his hand immediately, but didn't remove himself otherwise and just gazed at Rick. Senses reeling, Rick returned his stare as he slowly, shakily, stepped back and away from the other man, horrified by what he almost did, the lines that he almost crossed.

"You..." Rick started, mouth gaping slightly. Unable to speak properly and hardly knowing what to say, Rick looked away, a pain squeezing in his chest and an embarrassment blooming in his face. "You should go."

A look of hurt flitted across Daryl's unusually vulnerable face, quickly replaced by a dark expression steeped in offense and unbridled rejection. Rick opened his mouth to say something, anything, to fix Daryl's broken appearance, but closed it when he realized there was nothing he could say to make matters any better. For sure, no '_sorry, I jumped to conclusions and thought you were dropping hints_'. No '_silly me for almost jumping you without any warning_', either. Definitely no '_I couldn't help myself, I just have wanted you for so long and it hasn't hit me until just now_'. There was nothing Rick could do to salvage this, and it was best for Daryl's sake that he just leave.

'Pariah' wasn't right, but it was the first word to come to mind.

And Rick was alone, physically and emotionally, while Daryl left without another word. Sighing, he plopped himself down on the edge of the garden trough, boots sinking into the fertilized dirt, and hung his head. Just as Lori said in the midst of their fights, it was as if Rick could never do the right thing, say the right words, act the right way. There was something about Daryl that let him lower all inhibitions, lose all reason, shed the skin of the world and be himself. For the longest time, Daryl saw through his carefully constructed image anyway, shattering this illusion of normalcy, and Rick felt naked under those thin cut eyes. They took pleasure in scanning him all over and decoding his secrets, unraveling him from his core. It was unsettling at first, but between Shane making demands and Lori chastising him, eventually Rick grew to love it.

After all this undeserved happiness, now Rick was finally starting to make misplaced claims on the man. He wasn't being fair to the younger of them while acting this selfish. He needed self-control to do right by Daryl, despite these deep seated tendrils of desire that was was just now tuning into.

Rick held his heavy head in his hand, feeling the spot where Daryl's ghostly fingers had been stroking. Silently, Hershel came up next to him and carefully maneuvered himself down next to Rick, who shifted to make room for the older man without looking up. He knew what the older man had seen between him and Daryl just then, knew where Hershel's dusty old beliefs stood on his feelings for another man, and wasn't looking forward to the surely unavoidable conversation coming despite the long silence stretching on.

Just as Rick expected, Hershel cleared his throat to speak, but the words that came threw Rick for a loop. "That's a beautiful awning you two built. Sturdy, lasting, I'd imagine."

Furrowing his brow, Rick turned his head so he could look at the canopy, then Hershel. He definitely couldn't argue that the piece looked finely built for their resources, an attention to detail that only Daryl seemed to possess for handiwork, but was put off by something in Hershel's subtle insinuation. "That was all Daryl," he couldn't help saying bitterly.

"He built that by himself?"

Rick nodded and remained silent, and after a minute, Hershel continued. "He did a fine job, then. Though, I'd imagine, and excuse me for saying this, that had you contributed, it would have been something magnificent."

There was a defensive rush to Rick's cheeks as he straightened, turning to face Hershel who was eyeing him carefully. "Yeah, well, I was busy tilling the fertilizer." Hershel smiled at him, which only fueled his strange irritation further, and bent over to reach into the mixed dirt to pull out a pinch full. He rubbed the soil between his fingers, both of them watching it cascade back to earth, before patting the residue off on his jeans.

"Good, good," Hershel smiled innocently enough at Rick, but there was a touch of something cryptic in his undertone, an enigmatic air about his words. "A mound of soil can't begin to grow anything if it's not open to trying first."

Patience running thin and shame already burning in him, Rick couldn't keep the words being sourly flung from his mouth. "Don't I know it?"

"Do you?"

Rick cocked his head, looking up at Hershel whose smile was gone from his bushy face. He had grown serious, wrinkles in his face made deeper by the cast of the slowly setting sun, and Rick had to take a moment to let what he believed Hershel was saying to sink in. It spun his mind, baffled him, and he had to ask him just what he meant by that in order to find any clarity. Hershel exhaled and put a hand on Rick's uninjured shoulder, taking a moment to answer.

"Rick, if you want to keep acting like nothing's going on, that's fine," Hershel squeezed Rick's right shoulder, but the man couldn't feel it over the efflux of his heart plummeting to his stomach at hearing these words now, coming from another person, when he himself had just barely registered that there was anything going on at all. "But I can't pretend like I didn't just see what happened between you and Daryl."

"Hershel, that was - We weren't - " Rick tried to defend, tried to reason, with himself more so than with the older man, but Hershel stopped him with a look and Rick exhaled, defeated. "I don't know what that was," he offered honestly and folded back into himself, hiding his face in his hands and trying to quell his aching head.

"I think we've all been there before." There was a deep chuckle coming from Hershel that Rick looked over at and saw Hershel nodding his head understandably. "Although, in the end, I think it matters more what the two of you want it to be."

"It doesn't matter what I want it to be!" Rick suddenly straightened, looking to his companion with a long fed flame alight in his eyes. "'Less you forgot, I'm a married man, Hershel!" A short silence filled them as Rick faltered over his own words, quickly correcting himself. "I mean, I - I was." Flustered, dejected, Rick buried his face in his hands again, feeling the overwhelming frustration setting in his cheeks.

Hershel's hand left his shoulder and Rick didn't look up. "I think… I can understand where you're coming from, Rick."

Rick waited for him to continue, having no clue what to say himself, and fiddled with his wedding ring while Hershel cleared his throat. "My first wife and Maggie's mother, Josephine, was beyond what I ever thought I'd find in life. She was a partner, a mother, an assistant, a friend, until she wasn't." Hershel took a deep breath, folding his fingers and leaning on his knees pensively. "Now I never told Maggie this, but Jo and I, we fought quite a bit towards the end of her life. I turned to drink, and that ox of a woman, she'd lock me out." Chuckling, eyes lost in something far away and long gone, Hershel explained, "She was tough and stubborn and unforgiving, Rick, but as much as we fought and as much distance had grown in our hearts, I never could forgive myself when the Lord took her."

He fell to silence now, locked away in his memories of a different place, and Rick felt a desperate need for his story to continue, for it not to end there. So he lifted his head and prompted, "What did you end up doing?"

"Besides losing a few years to liquor?" he joked, brought out of his reverie with a smile. Perhaps it was obvious just how much Rick needed to hear more, a happy ending, despite knowing full well that happy endings were hard to come by in the apocalypse. Hell, they were rare and precious and unknown to Rick even before the walker disease ate away people's brains. "I dealt with it, Rick." Hershel's voice was adamant now, eyes firm on Rick's, and said, "I didn't let grief ravage me. Didn't let my wife's death define me. I learned how to deal with it because otherwise, I can't guarantee I'd be sitting here with you now.

"And if I hadn't learned how to cope with my guilt, I never would have met my darling Annette."

Rick's ears were ringing with Hershel's words, heart aflame with the prospect of being happy again, no strings attached. It was unfathomable to Rick, but saw that Hershel had managed it somehow and felt the blossoms of hope budding in his veins. But he batted it down, dammed his heady hope, when he realized that it was unlikely that Carl would see things this way.

"And Maggie?" wondered Rick outloud.

Hershel chuckled. "Maggie is so much like her mother, headstrong and knows how to hold a grudge. I'm sure you can imagine what it's like dealing with a teenager who blames you for their mother's death."

That struck a chord in Rick as he remembered just how cold and deadened Carl had looked when Rick had first learned of Lori's fate. How anaesthetized his son had been after that, unfeeling and unresponsive to Rick's attempt at fatherly affection, apathetic to Rick's desperate try at reconnecting with him. It killed Rick twice over, but things had started to progress between them finally these past few months, whether things were looking up or down or anywhere in between, Carl seemed alive again. Feeling.

"But eventually Maggie came around to the idea of me remarrying. Of course she wasn't happy that I had met someone new, and accused me of trying to replace Josephine," Hershel continued. "But we both had to learn that moving on didn't mean replacing anyone."

Rick tried to wrap his head around Hershel's words. Who would know better than this man what it meant to love someone while still holding onto a past marriage?

"How do you just…" Rick trailed off, a lump of fresh guilt cutting off his sentence, and tried to start again. "Our marriage was in shambles long before all this. Even when we didn't have to worry about being torn apart by walkers, we were still tearing each other apart. It was a constant fight, Hershel.

"And I always thought: one day we were going to fix it. Fix us. I held onto that belief, even through the dead rising, I believed that we had time. That we would make it." Rick shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut tight as he relived all of his shame as a husband. "But one day, I just stopped. Stopped trying, stopped caring, stopped everything, and I don't know if I realized it or not. She did, Carl did, but I don't even know if I cared to." Hands clenched, mind racing, Rick thought back to every mistake they had made, and just how obviously unhealthy it all had been.

"I could forgive her relations with Shane," Rick defended. "Hell, I could even forgive her lying and hiding it all the time, and I did. But damn it all, Hershel, when she blamed me for Shane's death, I… I couldn't do it. I couldn't do the spiteful looks, the constant pushing me away, the way she'd hold Carl from me. Like I was some monster, Hershel."

His eyes were stinging now, tears daring to form, and he pressed his palms to them to keep them at bay. Hershel, understanding as always, gripped Rick's shoulder again as Rick sputtered out, "I gave up."

"I don't think anyone would see what you went through as giving up."

"Lori did," Rick rebutted, bitterly. "And whenever we managed to talk about it, she let me know it. I messed up, Hershel, everything got messed up between us. And there was nothing I could do about it in the end. The last thing I deserve is to move on and pretend it never happened."

Hershel gathered his words before continuing, watching the sun graze the horizon. "I won't pretend to know why God does what he does, but what I do know is that punishing yourself won't get you anywhere, Rick. Now that boy of yours needs his father, the group needs their leader, and I daresay that Daryl needs you, too. You aren't helping anyone by holding onto this guilt, most certainly not yourself. Letting go isn't pretending your marriage never happened. It did happen, and it didn't end well."

Rick cringed at that, muttering "Ain't that the truth."

"You'll always have your time together to reflect on, as I often do with both Josephine and Annette, but that was from a different life, Rick. A life that wasn't made for this world and a life that you cannot go back to. There is no shame or guilt in trying to make the best out of what you have anymore, otherwise we're all guilty. Lori would have wanted you to make the best world possible for you and your children, and if Daryl is how you do that, then it's something we will all support."

Glancing up at the awning, then to Lori's grave alone and watching them silently, Rick felt his burdens swimming around his head nauseatingly. Hershel gave him time to reflect on their conversation, and with his constant guilt abiding slightly, Rick felt lighter than he had in months. In the midst of his contemplation, something funny hit him and he turned to Hershel, sitting quietly and watching the sunset.

"I mean no offense, but you're the last person I'd have imagined supporting… Well, this," he gestured lamely with his hands, still too unsure to bring words to his feelings for Daryl.

"What, two people finding happiness in each other?" Hershel smiled, quirking an old eyebrow at Rick's loss of words.

"Two _men_ finding… this."

Hershel chuckled, shaking his head, and responded, "That might have been true in a different time, but this world has no room for more hate or discrimination. I'd be happy to bless any love that can be found in these dark times."

Rick shook his head, still shocked that this conversation had happened at all, much less with their religious old man who toted a bible with him everywhere. But honestly, Rick was eternally grateful to Hershel's wisdom and contribution. It wasn't likely that Rick would have came to any of the same conclusions Hershel obscurely guided him towards, always a helping hand instead of a driving force to his wisdom. Rick couldn't imagine anyone else having the same insight as Hershel.

"In this world, we can no longer afford racism or sexism. When I was a different man, I never would have imagined allowing my eldest daughter to fight and kill same as the men, or date an Asian boy for that matter," laughed Hershel, eyes squinting fondly. Rick managed a smile as well, having met this Hershel just a year earlier.

"But I realize now that it would be cruel of me to despise any kind of union that can be sown in this world of death and misery. Some would consider it cruel of you as well to deny such a union." At this, Hershel turned to Rick and patted him on the knee, shifting his weight so that he could reach into his back pocket and drew out his withered old bible. Handing it to Rick, Hershel smiled and reached for his crutches, saying, "If that ain't enough for you, I'd suggest turning to Corinthian thirteen four. I think Paul might have some words for you."

Without another word, Hershel clumsily rose to standing and propped himself up with his crutches before hobbling off towards the prison. It was too late before Rick remembered to thank him, lost in thought as he opened the bible to a page marked and highlighted as if it was often read.

Rick was not a religious man, and firmly believed that Christian conviction had no place in this world. But still, he trusted Hershel's input in this and his eyes scanned the passage in question.

_Love is patient, love is kind..._

A/N: I know this chapter was kind of a slump, and I'm sorry about that. I just kind of figured everyone wanted a break from the tense life-or-death moments going on, and these little transitional periods help me get back involved with plot. Also, I think I'm total shit with characterization and need some major practice, so I would really appreciate you reviewing and letting me know what I need to work on or if I'm decent enough. Between Rick, Daryl, Glenn, and Hershel, I feel as if I'm all over the place and am crossing my fingers that it's not how I come across. Next chapter will sashay back into Rick and Daryl, and I promise I'll start to satisfy you readers soon enough :) Sorry if there are any formatting instances or grammatical errors, I wrote this on a dingy tablet and this isn't beta'd. Happy New Year!


	14. Catharsis

.:Catharsis:.

Rick had always been a light sleeper with an incredibly irregular sleep schedule that changed daily based on how things went on the beat that day, what day of the week it was, and how amiable Lori was feeling that night. Overall, Rick had managed to adjust to functioning off of very little sleep, which seemed to be a requirement in the apocalypse. While everyone else's mood plummeted or reflexes waned, Rick could manage the flood of adrenaline in fighting off walkers or running for his life on just a few hours of sleep.

Today, however, Rick found himself wishing that he had managed to gain more sleep between the tossing in his sheets and the buzzing in his mind. It was Thanksgiving morning after all, finally, and after an entire night of circular reasoning and confusing emotions, Rick realized it was rather selfish of him to be making decisions that affected Daryl, for Daryl, and without talking to him. Up to this point, he had simply been responding to his own hectic mind, the fleeting uncertainty that came with the gut wrenching butterflies of their magnetic proximity dictating his actions. It was frustrating and only causing problems between him and his best friend, and Rick was tired of being driven by anything other than his usual composed logic.

It was time for some much needed damage control, thought Rick groggily as he threw the covers off and got ready.

His stomach was churning anxiously as he mounted the stairs towards Daryl's cell, two at a time and as quietly as he could manage in the early morning stillness. It was always hard to tell whether it was morning or otherwise within the grey confines of the prison, but Rick's internal clock never let him stray too far from the world outside and was confirmed by the stony silence surrounding him. Not even Judith seemed to be stirring this early.

When he finally reached Daryl's cell, Rick sucked in a deep breath before he stepped closer to look inside. The bed was uncharacteristically made, Daryl's crossbow nowhere to be seen, and hauntingly empty of its owner. Rick released the breath he had been holding, leaning against the freezing iron bars and feeling waves of disappointment and relief rolling through him equally. Serious conversations about feelings were never something he really excelled at and even avoided to the best of his ability, but knew Daryl deserved better than mixed signals and radio silence from him. It took fourteen years worth of confrontations and apologies for him to finally understand that communication was a two-way street, and while it was unfortunately too little too late to have helped him with Lori, it might save him the pain of hurting Daryl. Rick mused, conflicted, though it did nothing to distract from the anxious clenching he felt in his gut as he pulled away from the bars and headed to the showers.

When he crossed into the tile threshold of their dingy showers, Rick stopped. He couldn't hear any showers going, but that didn't keep Rick from feeling tentative going forward if there was a chance Daryl was in there.

* * *

><p><em>"The hell do you want!" He had shouted at him as he made a desperate grab for his crumpled clothes. <em>

_Rick choked on his shameless surprise, grinning from ear to ear and not feeling the least bit embarrassed by Daryl's mad rush for modesty, stumbling backwards against the bathroom tile from the shock of it all. The bottle sloshed in his hands lethargically as he cracked up, his hoarse laughter echoing over the sound of the shower hitting the floor and saw that the rising steam was not enough to cover Daryl's growing flush. Face red and eyes glowering and obviously not the least bit buzzed anymore, Daryl hastily covered his lower body with his discarded clothes, doing his best to hide himself from Rick's half-lidded gaze._

_"Shit! Sorry, sorry," Rick covered his eyes, still grinning foolishly at the sight before him. "Thought you were Lori, man."_

_Daryl scoffed and Rick was genuinely surprised that he hadn't gotten punched yet, both grateful for Daryl's aversion to human contact and maybe a little challenged by it if he were being honest. It had been an honest mistake stumbling into the CDC showers and walking in on Daryl, naked and wet and just incredibly naked, but Rick couldn't find it in him to leave just yet. They had both been blindsided by the other's presence, stunned to inaction, but now it was just too funny to Rick's intoxicated mind to just turn around and leave. He had never seen this hard, adamantine man break before, and this uncompromising situation they happened upon was a thing of hilarious beauty in Rick's blurred eyes._

_"Do I look like a woman to you!" Daryl was practically shouting, hiding behind his measly clothes._

_Rick grinned at that sheepishly, peeking behind his fingers and eyes following Daryl's blushing body downwards. Big muscles, hard body, and... scars? "No you do not," Rick teased, watching Daryl squirm beneath his observation. Water dripped from Daryl hair, shorter and blonder, and down the crook of his neck and into the contours of his body. There was nothing feminine in the least about Daryl's body, nothing of Lori there, and hell if the alcohol wasn't playing tricks on Rick's suddenly hungry mind._

_"Ya gonna just stand there like a dumbass or will ya get the hell out?"_

_"What, you don't want company?" Rick slurred and took a swig of the thick liquor between his laughter, getting a real kick out of his own damn joke. Daryl,  
>however, did not find it as funny as he did and threw some of the cheap CDC soap at Rick. Hard.<em>

_"Git!" Daryl shouted as if Rick were some misbehaving dog begging for scraps._

_"I'm goin', I'm goin'!" laughed Rick, putting both the soap and the bottle on the ground for Daryl - who clearly needed to lighten up more - and got the hell out of dodge. It was a memory he let die as soon as he found the right shower stall, but the fact that following that run in was the best sex he had with Lori in years wasn't lost on him._

* * *

><p>Rick leaned back against the hard wall of their empty bathing area, staring at himself in the grimy mirror and wondering how he managed to change so much without his noticing. It's not that Daryl had changed, not in Rick's strange infatuation with him anyway. No, Daryl always had a soft spot reserved in Rick's heart, from when he had first eyed him up and down as a newcomer to now, that was nothing new. When had Rick started searching for something else, something more, in Daryl? For so long, Rick thought everything would be okay - he had found Lori and Carl, kept alive by his best friend Shane. With his son running into his arms and his beautiful wife crying tears of disbelief and his deputy looking on approvingly, it was the picture perfect reunion, only it wasn't, he now understood.<p>

Everything was as it should be, everything would be fixed, every gaping void in his bleeding heart would be filled, only it wasn't.

The long mirror stretched across the back wall of the bathrooms and, despite the occasional 'cleaning', was still covered in a thin layer of muck. Rick stepped closer and used his sleeve to wipe away a window of grime and get a better look at himself, feeling torn by his own face staring back at him. Gaunt cheeks, a cut jawline, and haunted eyes were eyeing him from the mirror, picking apart every thin and grizzly feature. It wasn't a face Rick recognized anymore and felt hollow inside as he tried to adjust to it.

This was his face. It wasn't the most attractive he'd ever been in his life, all covered in hair and age, but it was his face now. A face that had seen the worst of grotesque sights, drank from the elixir of death and came back for more, cried more tears than he cared to admit.

It wasn't a face he would have ever wanted to see in a mirror, but it was a face Rick knew how to live with now.

Sighing, Rick stepped away and thought back to his and Daryl's first meeting, right after his heart wrenching family reunion that was so perfect and pristine in his own head. Dirty, dingy, Daryl, bursting from the wilds, snarling and swinging fists to hide his crying eyes and breaking heart at the loss of his brother. Rick had been expecting a mini-Merle, vile and spitting words of hate, not a human being that made Rick feel. It all had been in such sharp contrast to reuniting with his loved ones that he hadn't foreseen the whirlwind of emotions carrying him away with the younger man, away from the family he had just gotten back. Kissing Lori and Carl, at the time Rick thought nothing would ever drag him from them again.

And yet, he didn't think twice about leaving the morning after with this broken man he had just met, had just dodged a knife from, and had just committed himself to.

* * *

><p><em>"Rick'll show you the way to your brother. Ain't that right?" Lori had sneered at them, Daryl desperate to find his only lifeline and Rick desperate to<br>put him back together, even if it meant leaving his family for the life of a 'douchebag'. She gave him one last chance to stay, like she did when Rick got an emergency call from work, and turned her back when he promised Daryl he'd do right by him._

_"So that's it, then?" Shane spat as Rick readied to leave, hell being flung from all sides where he needed support the most. "Just gonna walk off, ta hell  
>with everyone else?"<em>

_"What, you and Daryl?" Lori's tone was vindictive, and Rick had almost forgotten her usual passive aggressive demure in his mad rush to reunite with her. It brought reality crushing back around him, more forceful than any walker horde, and he had to nod when she quipped, "That's your... 'Big plan'?"_

* * *

><p>Rick dragged his eyes from the mirror and continued on, looking for Daryl, needing to let loose this overwhelming torrent of drowning reflections. That was his 'big plan', and knew that was exactly when Lori, his normally patient and compassionate wife, and Shane, his trusty deputy and friend, sided against them in some seething jealousy. That was the beginning of it all, and as much as he couldn't see it then, there was no coming back from that decision. No backpedaling, no apologies, and no grey areas. It was either Lori or Daryl, Lori or his job, Lori or doing what's right. The ultimatum to end all ultimatums, and as far as Lori and Shane were concerned, he chose wrong.<p>

Footsteps echoing, Rick made his way to the dining area and felt the disappointment in his throat winning out over the relief at Daryl's absence.

Not bothering to eat yet, Rick left the dining room and headed out, eyes squinting in the crisp air of early morning. He tugged his jacket closer to him and looked around, eyes locking on the guard tower when he saw that the yard was empty and quickly made his way to the tower. It wasn't unlike Daryl to hang out in the tower when he was overwhelmed or trying to think or just brooding, and Rick felt it was a safe bet that this is where his companion was hiding.

The dead grass crunched underfoot, frozen and whispering promises of snow, and Rick looked over to their garden. It looked lifeless and lacking, but Rick had tried to see it as budding and promising as he planted the seeds the night earlier before heading off to bed, drained physically and emotionally. They didn't manage to grow anything by today, but thanks to Daryl's find, at least they would have some produce for their Thanksgiving feast that night.

Despite their floundering and miscommunication as of late, Rick still wanted to make Daryl's first Thanksgiving something special.

He kept his eyes from Lori's grave at the top of the hill as he came to the tower, trying to keep the rushing guilt at bay. This would be his first Thanksgiving without her, and to even think of celebrating it made Rick feel woozy with condemnation, as if feeling any sort of happiness today was a besmirchment of their marriage. But both Carol and Hershel's words rang in his ears and he clung to them as an amnesty from himself, swallowing his pain to mount the ladder and trying not to weigh himself down with the pressure of his own revolution.

Rick was trembling as he climbed, making the ascension harder and slow-going as he tried to plan out just what he was going to say to Daryl.

"_I shouldn't have lost control, I'll be better now."_

"_I was a dumbass, I'm sorry, but you shouldn't have touched me like that."_

"_I screwed up, but maybe we can try again, man. Maybe you can touch me all you want."_

Pausing, Rick leaned his forehead against the cold bars of the ladder and shook his head. This wasn't much of an apology anymore as it was a good way to get himself lobbed from the guard tower, dropped like a bad habit. Dammit, he just wasn't any good with this. Rick could talk people down from suicide, talk a perp into lowering his weapon, talk a group of survivors into follow him through hell, but this? Talking out his feelings? He was better off winging it, Rick thought as he climbed the last two rungs, wishing himself luck as he opened the hatch and pulled himself through.

"Well, good morning," Carol smiled at him, eyes sleepy and coat tucked and blanketed around her tiny frame. She sat in one of their fold out chairs, facing towards the woods, and had her rifle propped up against the window.

"G'morning," stuttered Rick, feeling that same disappointment creeping in at Daryl's continued absence. Carol seemed to notice.

"Expecting someone else?"

"Naw, just…" Rick trailed off as he hoisted himself from the hatch and closed it, knowing he couldn't just turn right back around yet. Besides, he had nowhere else to look for the other man, and if Daryl were to tell anyone that he was running off somewhere, it would be Carol. Rick couldn't stop the pang of envy he felt at that thought as he pulled open a chair to sit beside the older woman. "I can't find Daryl, s'all."

She laughed, her voice chiming like bells, and said, "What else is new? That man never sits still for long."

"I noticed," Rick chuckled, running a hand over his face and wincing at how dirty he felt. For sure, he was going to need to shower and clean himself up before dinner tonight, once Carl took one. The dead might be walking the earth, but it was still Thanksgiving for Christ's sake, he thought to himself. Smiling, he realized Beth's holiday cheer was infectious and starting to rub off on him. "You know where I can find 'em?"

"Pffft. I'm flattered you think of me as his keeper," she smiled, but shook her head. "But I haven't seen him. Why, do you need him for something?"

Rick cringed at her word choice, but tried to ignore it. "No, I… It's Thanksgivin', didn't think he'd choose today of all days to run off somewhere." At his words, Carol sat back and watched out the window with him, the world a light pink and blue from the bleeding sun and everything still and quiet in its wake.

It was strange to think of today as out of the ordinary, a day meant for anything other than fear and survival, but Rick couldn't say he didn't enjoy it. Having something to look forward to was refreshing, and despite Lori's hovering guilt in his heart, Rick was really starting to feel the intoxicating effects of being happy again. But without Daryl here to experience this with, it felt muted and forced, smiling and laughing for Carl's sake more than his own. Today was monumental in so many ways, with everyone honoring those both past and present, alive and dead, and was Judith's first Thanksgiving along with Daryl's. It crushed him to think that Daryl would willingly opt out.

Minutes passed in silence as the two watched the world awakening in front of them, insects buzzing, birds chirping, and walkers groaning. A few walkers had managed to get themselves caught in some of Daryl's traps, flailing and rotting, and Rick watched them passively until Carol spoke.

"You seem really stressed out lately, Rick," she said, breaking the silence with her tiny and hesitant voice.

He knew there was no way to lie to her or avoid this, so he just shrugged and said, "Reckon I am." Rick kept his eyes to the window, feeling Carol's gaze on him, and tried to play it off as if he wasn't drowning in problems at the moment, though he knew it wasn't likely to fool Carol. The gentle woman seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to others, but Rick kept up the facade of nonchalance for his own sake. At the very least, he could try and fool himself.

"Is that why you're looking for Daryl?" questioned Carol innocently.

Rick's head snapped up, eyes screwed firm and drawn and completely bewildered at her. He didn't answer, lips pulled thin, and just gave her a harsh and objecting look that questioned her random reasoning. Rick didn't know why, but her automatic assumption that his stress was related to Daryl put him on the defense, as accurate as her conclusion was. He hated to think that he was that obvious, that predictable, that everyone could see his unease at  
>Daryl's absence.<p>

"Well, you seem to be happier when he's around," Carol shrugged, keeping her voice light and unobtrusive. "And on edge when he's gone."

"I'm on edge when anyone's gone," Rick said, quick to deflect.

"Hah, please, Rick," she scoffed and nudged Rick playfully to shake him from his mood and he let her, knowing she meant no harm in her allegations. "You're like a… caged bird when he's not around."

Caught off guard, Rick's defensive posture fell at her bizarre comparison. "A caged bird?"

He relaxed, chuckled even, and Carol laughed with him, the mood feeling lighter all around them suddenly. "You heard me. A caged bird. And you can go ask anyone, Rick, they all see it, too."

"So," Rick paused, grinning and gesticulating jocosely towards the prison to play along with the silly woman. "If I go down there and ask anyone, they're liable to call me a, a 'caged bird'?" He emphasized 'caged bird' to prove just how ridiculous the notion was. Carol was laughing again, eyes sparkling with mirth and face blushing at their conversation. In that moment, Rick was able to forget about the heavy burdens of his current life and gratefully indulged in the rare humor between him and Carol.

Carol shook her head, a grin dancing on her thin lips, and said, "Some might prefer 'lost puppy'."

"Y'all must be outta your damn minds," he teased, unwinding for the first time this morning. It felt good to joke around again, this past week having been so stressful and hectic, and although Rick still couldn't relinquish the knot in his stomach, he could at least overlook it for the moment. The two fell into companionable silence, something meaningful having just passed between them, and Rick let himself enjoy it.

Somehow, a quiet understanding had just occurred beneath the playful banter amid him and Carol, an unspoken acknowledgement and acceptance of Rick's more possessive attitude towards Daryl than towards anyone else. Supposedly, it was something the whole group had caught on to as well, and Rick felt his heart lunge thankfully that they hadn't excoriated or shunned him for it if Carol was telling the truth. It had apparently been evident from the start, his and Daryl's bond, as it had alarmed Shane and Lori, whom had both been considerably less understanding than the rest of the group.

The two of them sat in silence for a long time, the sky eventually brightening with the sun while Rick and Carol enjoyed each other's company, until -

"Look!"

Rick sat up straighter at Carol's sudden outburst, attention being drawn to the edge of the forest where the woman pointed towards some movement amongst the foliage. He squinted as she grabbed her rifle and left the room to peer down the scope at the rustling brush and Rick rose to his feet, hand on the butt of his Colt while he waited. Moments later, a figure emerged from the trees, broad, rushed, and clearly aware of the traps throughout the yard, and even from this high up, Rick knew immediately who it was and felt his heart rate rocket.

Carol pulled her face away from the rifle, eyebrows knitted, and said, "Is that..."

"Daryl!"

Not waiting for another word, Rick opened the hatch and practically leaped down it, wanting to meet the other man at the gate and fix this all before tonight. His static nerves at the impending confrontation between him and Daryl were completely overshadowed by his pure relief at Daryl's return, descending the ladder two prongs at a time. When he finally burst through the door of the guard tower and into the morning daylight, his sensitive eyes were met with Daryl's back against the gate, one hand holding a bird carcass of some sort and the other wielding his knife, while three walkers were closing in on him from the forest.

"Shit," Rick breathed, breaking into a run towards the gate while drawing his pistol.

Daryl lunged towards the closest body, digging his hunting knife straight between the walker's eyes as the other two made a grab at him. The hunter danced out of the way of the decrepit talons, seeming to put more effort in keeping the game in his hand unscathed than he did for himself, but in doing so lost his grip on his weapon. Rick heard the man curse appropriately at the situation before pressing his back to the chain link fence, unarmed, tensing his free hand into a fist and winding back.

"Get down!" called Rick, raising arm and cocking his gun.

Daryl glanced over his shoulder, his eyes flicking to Rick's for a split second, and dropped down immediately. The two corpses were nearly upon his friend, throwing themselves at him hungrily before jerking back and falling at Daryl's feet limply with the resounding pop of two rapid gunshots. They twitched piteously when Daryl kicked them away, shoes scraping the dirt frantically as he pulled himself up the gate, and stepped over the carnage to retrieve his blade.

"Thanks," Daryl mumbled, keeping his eyes away from Rick as he approached the gate where Rick was unlacing the chain. Rick's fingers paused, trembling now in ways they never did when he raised a gun, as his eyes lifted slowly to meet Daryl's face. He was looking down at his shoes, one hand clenching the fence and the other still grasping the neck of what looked to Rick like a goose.

"Daryl..."

Hesitantly, Daryl's cobalt eyes met Rick's and Rick felt his heart flutter. Was he really going to do this here, now? Rick steeled himself, taking a deep breath and trying to get his faltering words out from his suffocating throat, when Daryl spoke first and cut Rick off.

"Ya gonna let me in 'r what?" he said, voice gruff and breath buffeting Rick's face and it was just enough to jolt Rick's hands back into action.

Rick turned his attention back to the chain, muttering some vacant apology, and pulled the gate open for Daryl to slide through just as Carol caught up to them, rifle strapped to her thin shoulders. She smiled at Daryl and he nodded to her and there was a lump in Rick's throat as Daryl walked completely past him, feeling for all the life of him as nothing more than a third wheel at that moment. Daryl lifted up the limp goose for Carol to see and her face lit up at his catch.

"Ain't no tom 'r nothin', but," Daryl shrugged, keeping his back to Rick. "Here's yer damn Thanksgiving y'all want so bad."

Without another word, Daryl made off towards the prison despite Carol's warm gratitude, not even stopping when Rick called his name. Carol seemed to catch Rick's face falling slightly from the other man's behavior and squeezed his arm tenderly, trying to offer him some sort of comfort, but Rick gently shook off her hand.

"He'll come around, whatever it is," Carol assured, sounding far more confident than Rick felt as they watched Daryl disappear into the prison.

"How can you possibly know that?" sighed Rick.

Carol laughed, shouldering him as she turned back to the guard tower, and said, "Because that man won't listen to anyone else." Rick paused to consider that, remembered the man's loyalties and just who it was he was dealing with, and firmly swallowed his silly frettings with a smile.

"And Rick," Carol paused, looking over her bony shoulder at him, and grinned. "Try and cheer up. It's Thanksgiving."

He returned her smile and tried to take her advice by loosening his tense neck and shoulders before heading off to the prison, stopping short in his tracks to turn around and call out to her retreating form. "Happy Thanksgiving, Carol!" She turned back and waved before entering the tower. Taking a deep breath, Rick made sure his smile was still in place and entered the prison.

* * *

><p>The festivity of the day was not lost on everyone else, his family already starting to careen around as the day stretched on. Eventually Carol came in and between her and Oscar, who showed a surprising finesse when it came to cooking, the smell of their Thanksgiving meal spurred on the holiday excitement. With Axel's help, the sweet potatoes were peeled and ready to bake, Beth managed to toss together a simple spinach salad with tomato and cucumber, and the gutted goose was basted and marinated as the pièce de résistance. It would take a few hours for it to be cooked through all the way considering how little gas the prison had in reserve, but nobody seemed to mind as they prepared the rest of the meal.<p>

Maggie whipped up some of her "world famous canned green bean casserole", essentially just a warmed up, seasoned can of green beans with their improvised supplies, while Carol simmered the gravy and hummed happily. Carl was sent out of the cooking area, filled with adults, to plop next to Glenn at the circular table in the dining area just a few feet away and sighed, dropping his chin to his hand glumly.

"Kick you out, too?" Glenn nudged Carl, sounding just as dejected.

"Yeah. Said I was in the way," pouted the teen, flicking his hat out of his eyes so he could watch the grown-ups. "Even though Beth is still helping out."

Glenn shrugged. "She can cook."

"I can cook," Carl said, automatically jumping to defend his abilities despite never having cooked a day in his life. But he had seen his mom make pancakes enough times to know exactly how not to cook and was confident enough to try. His older friend muttered something about how he couldn't, but never needed anything outside of his work's pizza anyway.

Rick was stuck with dish duty, scrubbing their few plates and utensils in the sink for later that night, and stopped elbow deep in the sudsy water when he overheard his son and Glenn talking. He pulled away and dried his hands on his jeans, figuring he'd let the pots and cans soak for a bit while he taught his son a thing or two about the kitchen.

"Hey, Dad," nodded Carl, still sulking with Glenn.

"Hey," Rick smiled at them and tapped his old sheriff's hat down on Carl's head, eliciting a scowl from him as he straightened it back into position. "Did I hear you two sayin' yer not allowed to cook?"

Carl frown and nodded, and Glenn stretched back with a sigh and said, "It's prolly for the best, Rick. I'm not seeing any mozzarella for pizza or bread sticks."

"Shoot, ya don't need any of that fer what I got in store," he waved away, grinning at them both and gesturing over to a spot by the stove that had opened up minutes ago. Perfect. Glenn and Carl looked at each other before getting to their feet, pouts gone and replaced by smiles, and Rick quickly nabbed the available burner, along with a pot, some sugar, and a very large portion of their cranberries.

Not long after, the three of them had the early stages of a very sweet, yet very tart cranberry sauce. Rick threw in some cinnamon and nutmeg before he stepped back and patted his cooking companions on the shoulders, both of them looking quite pleased with themselves, and told them to let it simmer for a bit.

As the food cooked, Rick played with Judith at the table while pleasant conversation filled the air around them. He could vaguely make out some of the chatter, Maggie clearly exaggerating about killing their own livestock for the holidays back on the farm and Glenn freaking out, Axel and Oscar comparing the prison Thanksgiving dinners to their future meal, and -

Rick's ears seemed drawn to Hershel and Carol, tuning in to them reminiscing about their past holidays with their passed spouses, and his eyes automatically flickered to Carl. Apparently, he wasn't the only one eavesdropping and saw Carl's face darken when their conversation turned to how cathartic today was, how necessary it was in moving on. Rick sighed as he watched his son leave, storm out of the room wordlessly, and bundled his baby girl up in her blankets before tucking her into his arms to follow Carl.

By the time Rick searched the showers and Carl's room, Judith was getting fussy. He tried to console her, bouncing her and teasing her little hands and wondering just how in the hell Daryl managed to always soothe her, before he had to take her outside to cry. Closing the door behind him, Rick held her close to buffet the cold air from her and as he tried to sway Judith back to peace, his eyes absentmindedly found Lori's grave up the hill.

Carl.

His son was standing over his mother's grave, shoulders hunched from either the cold or something else, and Rick could've kicked himself - of course his brooding teenage son would be out here. Rick nearly turned back inside, wanting to give Carl the space he needed to grieve, but something in him decided against it and he and Judith made their way up the hill.

The dead grass crunching beneath them gave away Rick's approach, but Carl seemed to ignore him until his dad was next to him, placing a heavy hand on his shoulder. Carl looked up at that, the brim of his hat tilting back until tears were clearly visible on his freckled face.

"Hey, buddy," Rick started, not really having any idea where to go beyond that as now both of his kids were crying when he could barely juggle just one. A looming silence stretched on between father and son, only the sounds of Carl's choked down sniffling and Judith's persistent mewling filling Rick's ringing ears.

"You gotta burp her."

Rick's brows knit together, not expecting that from his obviously pained son, and it took a second to register. "What?"

"Judith," Carl sighed, his usual veneer of teenage disdain muted beneath his tears and sniffling nose. "When she cries like that, it's 'cause she needs to be burped." Willing to try anything to pacify his baby daughter, Rick propped Judith onto his shoulder and did as Carl suggested, grinning lightly when she let out a tiny belch and slowly ceased her crying. Before he could even ask where Carl learned that from, his son smirked at him dully and said, "Daryl taught me."

He could barely contain the snort that formed at the irony of that, of how Daryl seemed to have some natural knack to affect the Grimes family without fail. "Course he did," Rick chuckled, rubbing Judith's back with soothing fingers. "Now you gonna talk to me or what?"

Shrugging at the grave impassively, Carl's voice was hollow when he eventually said, "She's gone. There's nothing to talk about."

"Carl," Rick moved his hand to his son's back, squeezing the nape of his neck gently like he used to do when life was as simple as bad grades and stupid girls. It had been a long time, a whole other lifetime it felt like, since Rick had reached out to Carl like this and he took a deep breath, trying to voice Hershel's words the best he could. "Your mother... She's gone. But us, we're still here. We have a chance to survive, to grow. We can be happy, Carl."

Carl rubbed at his nose with his sleeve angrily, face tightening as he shouldered off his father's hand and flinched away from him. Rick's heart sunk at his  
>reaction and he bit his cheek sheepishly. He knew this conversation with Carl had been a long time coming and had dreaded every second in its wake, even going to far as to side stepping this moment when the words were particular bulky in his throat. But after everybody's kind, consoling speeches, their tender counselings and words of much needed wisdom, Rick thought he had it down and knew that Carl needed to hear it, too. But so far, like so many other conversations in Rick's life, this was backfiring and blowing up in his face and he knew he needed to salvage it for Carl's sake.<p>

"So, what?" he spat vehemently, eyes narrowed into an angry squint as he sized up against his dad in a way only his teenage son could do. "We just, just forget about her? Act like she was never even here?"

"That's not what I'm saying - "

"Maybe you can go and pretend mom never existed," Carl interrupted. "But I can't do that to her. Someone has to remember mom, and it sure isn't you."

"Hey," barked Rick, his haunches rising defensively as he stroked Judith's back. He could feel all of his hard work from the past few days crumbling beneath him at Carl's flaring anger and desperately grabbed at whatever pieces he could salvage, trying to painfully put them back together. All he could mesh together was some bastard amalgamation of Hershel's wisdom and Carol's strength and worked to meld it to something Carl  
>could understand, some white flag he could wave and seek<br>shelter under. "I loved your mother."

"Like hell you did!" Carl snarled and Rick winced at his language, clearly something else he was picking up from Daryl, and tried to console the endlessly empathetic baby in his arms fussing at their conflict.

"You watch yer mouth," said Rick, lowering his voice to keep from upsetting Judith much more. His son didn't seem to pay his sister any mind.

Carl's face was flushed with a violent red, smearing his cheeks and veiling his freckles in his indignation when Rick spoke. "Oh, _now_ you're going to be all fatherly?" His voice dripped with sarcasm and Rick found those precious pieces of his demeanor that he grasped onto like a lifeline we're jagged and cutting, but he clung to them still.

Rick took a deep breath, keeping his voice low as he reached out to Carl once more. "Carl, we can talk about this."

But he wasn't having any of that and stepped out of Rick's reach, glaring as he shouted, "No! We can't!" Carl reached up to his head and grabbed his hat with shaking hands to throw it at Rick's feet, not seeming to care one bit about the hurt searing through Rick head to toe, burning him to a crisp. He pressed Judith closer to him, both to soothe her and himself, watching as Carl grew more agitated and riled, not even noticing his  
>leaking eyes and nose anymore.<p>

"There's nothing to talk about! Mom's dead! She's gone," his voice was rising to a breathless crescendo that rang in Rick's ears worse than any gunshot. "It's over." Rick took a deep breath, wanted to mediate, to de-escalate, but stumbled over Hershel's words.

"It ain't over. We're still here."

"You weren't back then! Not when we needed you!" Rick flinched at that, feeling his heart clench tightly beneath Judith's squirming weight, and the fire in Carl's eyes did nothing to abate the ice in Rick's bones. "You were never there! Mom needed you, and you. Weren't. _There_!"

Carl yelled himself breathless, emphasizing each word painfully, and Rick hoped for a moment that the torrent was gone. This wasn't a conversation he ever, ever wanted to have, but realized just how much of it had been bubbling beneath Carl's skin for months and knew these were things his son needed to say. Realizing that, Rick quelled his first instinct to shut his son down and walk away, avoid this emotional conflict altogether, and instead steeled himself for the worst and remained patiently quiet. These were words he'd have to carry and bear, for Carl's sake.

Eyes wide and shiny, Carl shook slightly, his mouth parted and cheeks flushed from his outburst. His breaths came in short pants from the adrenaline of yelling as he waited, shifting from foot to foot for his dad to scold him, turn from him, anything, but when Rick kept his mouth shut, Carl seemed to regain his voice and ventured, "I needed you. But you weren't even there when Mom..."

Words halting, voice hesitant, he trailed off, "When I..."

Coming up short, Carl brought a hand up to his face, pressing it to his mouth as if to keep the flood of words in now. His eyes scrunched together as they began to water again, covering his face in a fresh stream of overwhelming grief, and he sank to his knees as he said, "I killed her, Dad."

The deafening ringing of Carl's admission sank to Rick's hollow heart, echoing around in his veins as both of his children wailed. He should have stopped this.

"It wasn't a walker, and it wasn't starvation, it was - it was me," Carl choked out, all faces of anger drained from his body as his shoulders shook from the sheer force of his guilt. "I pushed her away, Dad, I - I made her think I hated her. And then I..." He shook his head shamefully, unable to finish, and clenched at the dead grass to anchor himself as the pain washed over him.

"Carl..." Rick breathed, feeling air in his suffocating lungs for the first time in he didn't how long. He stepped over the discarded sheriff hat and crouched down, using his free arm to pull him in and hug him, shushing his whimpering cries. Before Rick could think of what to say, frozen solid in the reminder of that world-ending day and the dead, distant look in his son's face, Carl spoke first, into Rick's jacket and through a layer of his own tears and snot.

"Do you hate me, Dad?" he whispered, trembling all over.

Rick could barely feel his face crumpling, barely feel his own shaking shoulders, over the breaking of his heart. It was too much to bear and he sobbed, pressing his face to Carl's greasy hair and crying with his children at Carl's words. It had been an impossibly heavy load to shoulder recounting his own misgivings as a father and as a husband, but his sense of duty forced him to manage it. Hearing that his own son thought he hated him was too much, though, and he clung to his children helplessly.

Carl's hair in his face, tears in his beard, Rick shook his head over and over, repeating, "No, Carl, no, I would never, could never," like a mantra.

The three Grimes sat there in each other's embrace, shaking and crying and feeling, until eventually the world changed around them, their grief shifting beneath them like tectonic plates in a continental drift of emotion being drained from them. Soon, they were an island of relief in a vast ocean of emptiness that one only feels after crying their heart out, and Carl tentatively looked up. Rick watched him and smiled lightly, reaching up to wipe at Carl's wet face and said, "I could never hate you, son.

"And I don't blame you fer what happened to yer mother," he continued, watching Carl's face crumble. He squeezed the back of Carl's neck, pulling him in to kiss his forehead reassuringly. "No one coulda predicted things would turn out this way. But the only thing we can do is deal with it."

His son nodded his head and averted his eyes. "M' sorry... For what I said."

"Hey," Rick smiled gently, tears drying on his face from the sun. "Ya ain't gonna be alone anymore. You got me, and Daryl, and Beth, all of 'em. And even..." trailing off, Rick adjusted his arm until Judith was facing them and her puffy face lit up when Carl smiled at her.

"Judy," Carl cooed at her through his sniffling, which made her gummy grin widen at the attention.

Rick smiled at his children, taking a second to look over at Lori's grave. Carl followed his eyes and sobered when he was met with the wooden cross dangling together atop the empty mound of dirty. Smile fading, Rick took a moment to think and piece his words together more carefully this time.

"Yer mom, she was a wonderful person, Carl. We didn't get along sometimes, but I loved that woman with all my heart once," he spoke slowly. "I'll never forget her, but she wanted me to give you and Judy the best lives possible after she passed. And sooner 'r later, that's gonna mean more than just moping around and wishing things were different. That's gonna mean actually finding happiness again."

Carl's smile was distant and lost in thought as he played with his sister's tiny hands, eliciting happy giggles from the toddler. Rick was nearly jealous of the simple, frivolous mindset of his daughter. Reaching behind him, Rick pulled his old hat off the ground and beat the dust from it on his thigh before plopping it on Carl's head, forcing Carl to look back at him with a small smile. It brought life back to Rick's heart seeing him smile again and he reached out to muse up the hat, grinning when Carl swatted his hand playfully.

"You deserve to be happy, Carl."

He stopped in the midst of fixing his hat and looked up at Rick, eyes shining before softly responding, "You, too, Dad."

They stayed for a tender moment until Judith began to squirm in Rick's arms, whining for something other than the cramped position of their embrace, and Rick suggested that they go inside to see how the food was coming. As they walked inside, an arm around each of his children, Rick smiled and felt that same blossom on hope in his soul growing at his progress.

Talking to Daryl would hopefully be a breeze in comparison to Carl. Rick crossed his fingers for good measure.

* * *

><p>"There y'all are!" Maggie greeted them all with a smile as they entered the dining area, pleasant noise and smells wafting from the room. Rick gave the woman an apologetic smile, but she waved them off. "We've been lookin' for you guys, we have a surprise for you!"<p>

Carl's face brightened at her words, always one for surprises, whereas Rick was quite the opposite. Both his time on the force and walking unsuspectingly face first into fights with Lori left Rick wary of surprises, but smiled at Maggie anyway and patted Carl on the back. "You go on. I got something I need to take care of, first." His son happily went and sat next to Beth at the table where they had various grocery bags.

Before she left to join the rest, Rick stopped Maggie and ask, "Have you seen Daryl? I need to talk to him."

Maggie's brows knit together at his inquiry with questions of own, but shook her head and said, " We ain't seen him all day, we kind of figured he was with you."

Oscar spoke up, apparently having overheard them, and turned from the stovetop to face them. "Homes' up in his room. I tried getting him to come down a while ago, but hell if he'll listen to me."

"Thanks, man," Rick nodded at him.

He was turning to leave, a bubbly baby grabbing at his beard, when Maggie asked, "You want me to take her?"

Looking at Judith, Rick paused - he had intended to take her with him, at the very least to have someone happy to see him if things went south with Daryl, but decided against it. He nodded and tenderly handed Judith over to Maggie's open hands, thanking her and telling her that he'd be right back and not to wait for him. She complied and offered him a small, encouraging smile before returning to the group, leaving Rick to venture the halls of the prison with his destination pounding wildly in his heart. Daryl. He didn't even know what he'd say to the other man, never really having the time to plan anything, and just tried to quell the churning in his stomach. He'd just have to wing it.

Finally reaching Daryl's cell, Rick paused before entering the archway and braced himself, knocking lightly on the bars.

"Toldja ta piss off, Oscar," came the gruff voice, already agitated and unleashing a throng butterflies in Rick's stomach, swarming and propelling him into view. Daryl was sitting on his bedside table, hunched over something in his hands and in the dim, flickering candle light, Rick could see the glint of his knife. He didn't look up, too absorbed in his hands, so Rick cleared his throat.

"What's yer problem?" Daryl jerked his head up, eyes widening and hands faltering when he saw it was Rick.

Rick was leaning his uninjured shoulder against the doorway, smiling softly at the other man's expression. "Took the words right outta my mouth," he said playfully, watching Daryl's eyes narrow into his usual sharp points and jabbed the knife into the wood he was whittling, putting it to the side with a huff.

"Whaddya want, Rick?" he asked in a resigned voice, not seeming to know what to do with his hands anymore.

Sighing, Rick stuck his own idle hands in his pockets and stepped inside, trying not to mind how tense that made Daryl. He thought for a minute, the silence palpable between them, before shrugging and eyeing Daryl helplessly. "Hard to say anymore. But I do know that I want you down there."

Daryl snorted and looked away, clearly on edge. "Who says I wanna be down there?"

"You - a few days ago, anyway," he pointed out, hoping to ease the combative facade Daryl was wearing that Rick could very clearly see through. Daryl was wringing his hands, deliberately looking away from Rick. "What changed yer mind?" He spoke softly, knowing this was dangerous territory to be venturing into, and expected some kind of vehement backlash from the other man.

"What changed yours?" Daryl echoed, treading equally slow, gingerly approaching his question. It took Rick by surprise and he swallowed thickly, butterflies fluttering and hands clenching in his pockets.

"Nothing."

Daryl's eyes found his, mystified and filled with something Rick was scared to acknowledge, feeling that same halting jittery nervousness eating at his confidence as Daryl slowly rose to his feet, straightening until he met Rick's height with his own. Rick held his ground, knowing that doing anything but would ruin things and hurt the other man all over again, but not knowing what to expect made his heart race.

"What're you sayin'?"

Rick's breath hitched as Daryl came close, and struggled to get the words out. "Come with me. I want you there." The other man looked hesitant, eyes flicking towards the dining room where exuberant noise echoed from, and back to Rick, torn. So Rick continued. "We're all family now, one way or another - including you. It's only right that…" Rick trailed off, taking a breath before trying again. "I want us…" Faltering, embarrassed, Rick just reached out and grabbed Daryl's forearm, feeling the tight muscles stiffen beneath his touch.

_It's only right that you're with me._

He knew better than to push Daryl like this, but words were failing him, and he didn't know how else to get his companion down there. "I'm gonna do right by you, Daryl," Rick promised, eyes firm and words thick with belief. Daryl looked wary, but his lips quirked gently into a small smile.

_I want us to be down there, together._

"So just… Come on."

Rick pulled at Daryl's arm and was surprised when it gave, Daryl allowing Rick to lead him without any resistance. His skin was warm to the touch, yet it sent chills down Rick's spine and he suppressed a shiver. They eventually reached the dining room, lively and festive, but their eyes never left each others.

**Notes:**

If anyone could kindly point me back in the direction of my own plot, my word count would very much appreciate it. None of these conversations were meant to happen, let's hope they were worth it, eh? I'm so sorry about my tanget mind, life has been overwhelming and this is what came out. This was all done on a tablet again, so my lovely beta redneckwoman worked her ass off, but all mistakes are my own after everything. Also, within the next two chapters, I am going to have to raise the ratings for particular reasons. Sorry!


	15. Psalm

.:Psalm:

"Surprise!"

Rick's eyes widened upon finally leaving Daryl's, summoned by Beth's ecstatic voice, and was greeted with an impressive sight. There were extra tables from the rec room all pushed together and adorned with a simple white tablecloth draped awkwardly across them. Atop the cheap tablecloth were various crafts, feathers, and opened cans of paint with some paint brushes already smeared with colors next to them. Hershel was holding Judith while the Greene daughters were covered in paint and at the table, Axel was holding up a poorly cut construction paper turkey to show Carol, who was laughing at the dangling feathers glued to it.

Beth and Carl were sitting together, tracing their hands on more construction paper while Glenn and Maggie hung up the decorated paper turkeys all around the room. Oscar was tending to something in the kitchen, humming, and Rick turned to Daryl, who was soaking it all in with wide eyes. He squeezed his arm and drew him down the steps, smiling at his family when they all greeted him.

"When I said 'start without me', didn't think I'd be walking into a war zone," Rick chuckled and caught his son waving him over, tugging Daryl along with him.

The walls around them were covered in a busy collage of handprints and paintings, all shades of color smearing a liveliness to the usually shabby stone of the prison in the form of flowers and stick figures. There was very little rhyme or reason to most of the artwork splayed before his eyes, but it brought a wide smile to his face anyway as Rick's eyes absorbed the various handiwork.

"We wanted to leave our mark on the prison," spoke Beth softly. She was watching Rick's examination of their craftsmanship, crayons stilled in her hands expectantly, and smiled at him. He let his eyes drift around the room and noticed Daryl doing the same. Beth shrugged her thin shoulder nonchalantly, as if she hadn't just improved the quality of each one of their lives with a simple, maudlin gesture, and returned to her coloring contently. "'Sides, this is our home now. Figured it could use some color to it."

"Sight fer sore eyes," Rick agreed and glanced at Daryl, who was seemingly in awe of the sentiment of their peers.

"And you nearly called the whole thing off," pipped Maggie playfully, drawing their attention to see her hands covered in pink paint and threading paper decorations along the wall. He couldn't help but notice that her boyfriend had a very pink handprint on the backside of his jeans, to match the very pink tinge to his ears, but Rick bit his tongue to keep the jests at bay. Daryl, however, did not.

"Think pink's yer color, Glenn," Daryl jabbed with a smirk.

Glenn's ears turned a shade darker, but he kept face to his work and said proudly, "I find it very flattering."

There was laughter in the air while Hershel shook his head bemusedly at the young couple, everyone blissfully engaged in the spirit of Thanksgiving and smiles seemingly easier to come by today. The room smelled vaguely of the non-toxic paint but was overwhelmed by the hearty aroma of the simmering goose, making Rick's mouth water in anticipation. Carl was cutting out the outline of his turkey with a small pocket knife and Rick couldn't help but smile fondly at him, remembering when his son was far too cool for hand turkeys and construction paper.

"I see you finally decided to show up," Carol smiled at Daryl, looking up from Axel's poorly drawn stick-pilgrim, and scooted over to make room for the other man.

Daryl lingered by Rick, looking rather out of place among the festivities, and rubbed at his neck awkwardly before shrugging off her offer. "Can't say I really know what ta do in all this," he trailed off quietly, eyes flickering to Rick's with a glint of embarrassment. Rick extended an encouraging smile to him and gestured to a paint brush covered in cornflower blue.

"Reckon it's time to learn, then," said Rick as he grabbed for the brush and then held out his open hand for Daryl's hesitant one. The younger man looked from Rick to his divulged hand, naked and impossible to ignore, and clenched his own hand apprehensively. Rick could feel Carol's eyes on them, narrow and observant, but ignored them when Daryl finally slid his shaking hand into Rick's. His heart lunged pleasantly, beating double time at the feel of Daryl's hand heavy in his own and didn't realize until Daryl's compliance how nervous he had been of rejection. But it didn't matter now, a small smile playing on his lips, as he turned over Daryl's hand palm up and brought the paintbrush to it.

Jerking his hand away as if he'd been shocked, Daryl's brows were knitted as he held his painted hand to his chest with his clean one defensively. "The hell ya thinking?" Daryl bit.

Rick put the paintbrush down and held up his hands placatingly, trying not to let the hurt he felt at Daryl's reaction pigment his voice when he answered. "Leavin' our mark," he quoted Beth's earlier words, trying to stay neutral. "It's our home now, 'n we both have a place on that wall."

"Yeah!" Beth sang happily from the table. "We all left a spot over there for you two, next to Carl's. See his in green?"

Daryl still seemed uncertain, so Rick grabbed the brush again and held it out to the hunter this time with a tiny, hopeful smile. "You can do me, first, if ya want." Something beholden fleeted across Daryl's features before he gave a slight nod and took the tool from Rick, grabbing his left hand with his right and holding it coarsely until Rick's wide palm was facing them.

The paint was cold and slick, and the rough bristles of the brush nearly tickled Rick pleasantly. He tried not to move as Daryl completely focused on Rick's hand and covered every inch of the surface with the cornflower paint, chewing on his bottom lip and narrowing his eyes. His long brown hair dangled between them and caught Rick's attention, drawing his gaze to Daryl's face and hitching his breath when he noticed that the other man's irises were strikingly similar to the color coating his left hand. Rick looked away quickly and felt an embarrassment churning in him at his color choice and desperately hoped no one else noticed.

"Lookin' good," Daryl muttered as he finished his work, Rick's palm and fingers now a light blue. He tried not to wiggle them as Daryl let go, looking towards the other used paintbrushes and reaching for the nearest one with his freehand.

"My turn?" asked Rick with a smile and held up a coppery orange. Daryl held his hand out and winced at the feel of the paintbrush on his skin, shivering slightly. Rick tried not to draw the process out, already feeling lightheaded from both the paint and the contact with Daryl, and quickly threw the brush down with a clatter not even minutes later. It might not have been as meticulous as Daryl's handiwork, but Rick could sense Carol glancing up at them every so often and started to squirm beneath her attention. "Done."

With painted hands, Rick and Daryl smiled tentatively at each other and walked to the nearest wall where Carl's green handprint stood out amongst the others, small but distinguished. Rick couldn't help but grin as he and Daryl simultaneously pressed their hands to the cold stone, blue left and orange right, just above Carl's. They held their positions for just a moment, hands pushing the paint into the wall and opposite arms gently touching, and when they pulled away, their handprints shone bright and wet. Daryl's print was slightly larger than Rick's, only noticeable because of their proximity, but other than that were nearly indistinguishable. The silence between them was comfortable as they appreciatively stared at each other's mark on the wall, and both men were startled when someone approached them from behind.

Carol was smiling at them and holding Judith out towards them, and Rick took her happily. "Figured we'd wait on Judy 'til you could do it, Rick."

Rick gave her his thanks and grabbed a purple paintbrush from the table, a soft lilac color that he thought she would love to see when she was a little older. When he returned to the painted wall, he turned to Daryl and offered the brush to him. "Care to do the honors?"

Daryl looked taken aback by Rick's approach, shrinking slightly from the sentiment while he considered, and eventually took the paintbrush without looking at Rick. "C'mere, Asskicker," he cooed in a voice only meant for Judith, and grappled the giggling girl for her tiny hands. She shrieked with delight as Daryl nipped at her fingers and Rick had to secure his hold on her wiggling form, laughing with his daughter and everyone else at the sight. Daryl was always incredibly reserved and shy when trying to express himself, but he never held back when it came to Judith and it took some getting used to for everyone to see this solid, emotionless man play around with a toddler. For a long time, Daryl tried to keep this playful, paternal side of his from the rest of the group, but eventually it became something endearing and quite frankly, Daryl just didn't seem to give a damn what everyone else thought when Judith was involved.

"Hold still, baby girl," Daryl soothed as he ran the bristles over her tiny hand, covering the square area with two, short brush strokes. The excited trill that came from Judith brought forth a chuckle from the two men, her stubby, dainty fingers grabbing at the hairs of the brush while her other hand was flailing animatedly. Daryl tickled her palm with the brush for another moment before she made a grab at his hair, smearing his dangling bangs with liquid lavender.

"Judith!" scolded Rick, unable to keep the amusement from his voice as he watched Daryl set the tool down and try to flick the wet dreg from his hair. Rick found himself wanting to help, to wipe the color from Daryl's hair, but busied his hands with keeping Judith's paint hand out of her mouth.

"Already fightin' dirty," Daryl mused and left the paint alone, having only made it messier trying by fumbling with it, while Judith stretched her thrashing arms out for Daryl's attention. "Gonna be a scrapper one day, ain'tcha?" He smiled at her, a rare and genuine smile, and took her little wrists in his large hands, gently guiding both her and Rick closer to the wall until eventually he held her hand spread to the stone, just next to Carl's green. His hold was both steady and fragile, as if Rick's daughter were made out of precious glass, and Rick felt his heartstrings tug warmly in his chest as he watched the two.

When they pulled back, there was a flawless, tiny lilac shape completing the family, so petite and dainty compared to even Carl's handprint.

"It's perfect," Carl's voice rang, and Rick couldn't help but agree as he watched Daryl admire their work, an inconspicuous raise to the corner of his lips that only deepened when Rick caught his eye.

Together, they completed the family of hands colorfully decorating the wall, all different in shapes and sizes - hands that had done unspeakable things, crimes fitted only to this world they lived in, and hands that had held each other, lovingly in the best of times and consolingly in the worst. Rick never considered himself a sentimental or emotional man, but in this moment he felt nothing less than wave after rolling wave of attachment and love for these people around him, his family. Just a few weeks ago, the last thing he imagined himself being today was thankful, yet here he stood now in awe of the happiness he felt.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in a busy jive of paint with the constant looks thrown at the wall, traded with Daryl, or playing with his children. Rick finally allowed his heart to feel lighter than it had in ages as he swung Carl around or bounced Judith on his hip, laughing and joking with the rest of them.

Beth finished her drawing of everybody, the blocky wax details striking considering the medium she used, and hung it up on the wall with the help of her older sister. "Happy Thanksgiving" was written in construction paper sky above their colorful crayon caricatures, and the Greene sisters marveled at it. Carol went to take over for Oscar in the kitchen so he could partake in the festivities as well and Axel decorated his artwork with more feathers.

"Nice hair, Daryl," came Carl's voice, cocky and teasing. "Purple looks really good on you."

Rick turned around to chastise his son, wanting him to apologize for disrespecting an adult as the teen so often did, but stopped in time to see Daryl swipe a lazy finger across Carl's nose, sneering down at him.

"Not as good as orange looks on you, brat," Daryl played back, shit-eating grin splitting his face at the bronze paint on Carl's freckled skin. Rick deflated, losing his reprimand on the tip of his tongue as he watched Daryl stooped to his son's level. To a teenager's level. To _Carl's _level. Exhaling, Rick shook his head and realized that he should've known better than to think Daryl was above a finger paint fight with his son. When Rick had first found the group, he noticed that Carl had a strange fascination with the hunter that was deep-seated in the dynamic of a little boy looking up to the big, tough badass of the gang. All of his cigarette-smoking and leather jacket-wearing ideals and aspirations personified, materialized in front of his very eyes whenever his mother wasn't covering them to hide them from a dirty, ratty derelict.

But to Carl, Daryl had been so much more than just some thug, just some mean Merle in-progress. Like his mother, he saw the foul-mouthed sneer and the badass bike, but like his father, he saw a tough man with a jagged past who could handle anything. It was everything he wanted to be, and after he felt abandoned by Shane, Lori, Rick, it was the only thing he had left.

"You did _not _just do that," said his son at the smear on his face.

Daryl's snicker was brutal as he crossed his arms and peered down at the kid, glancing up to Rick for a split second as if to make sure he hadn't crossed any lines and said, "N' what if I did?"

Carl also turned to Rick, looking up at him with twinkling eyes as if to ask permission to sass Daryl right on back. Rick bit his lip, knowing how much hell this would have raised once upon a time, but eventually smiled and nodded back after taking in the shade of orange wiped across his son's nose.

"S'pose he'd just have ta show you who's boss, then," Rick smirked, watching Carl's face mirror his self-satisfied expression as he dipped his fingers in one of the open paint cans.

"That right?" said Daryl as he made a grab for one of the paintbrushes and brandished it like a knife, egging Carl on. Rick chuckled as the two wrestled and flung tinted warheads at each other, shading the world around them in laughter and dye until eventually Beth and Oscar were ensnared in the commotion by wayward paint bombs.

Hershel ensuingly pulled out an old harmonica, a gift from Maggie some time ago, and it's acoustic whine filled the air in energetic, staccato notes with every draw on the reed. The refrain had an upbeat and ragtime feel to it, the syncopation giving the atmosphere a lively ambiance as Maggie pulled Glenn into a spin and started to square dance with him, reeling from their do-si-do in his incoordination. Axel grabbed a reluctant Carol into his arms to mimic the younger couple and eventually had her crowing humorously with his apparent two left feet.

His family was dancing and cavorting in a world of color and laughter, and it felt so unreal to Rick as he swung Judith around playfully, happily. Her lilac paint had been grabbed into his shirt and twisted into his beard from her restless hands, but Rick didn't mind one bit.

It was some time later that Hershel's pealing notes slowed to a somber drag, his melodious tones elongated and touched with lament as their atmosphere abated to a dolent air. Glenn and Maggie were slow dancing now as Beth settled in next to a very tense Carl, both of them covered in spatters of multicolored paint while Oscar convinced a rejected Axel to style his moustache with pink for Carol.

Rick felt warm in the Thanksgiving cheer, the smells of roasting potatoes and sizzling poultry still wafting in the air, and looked around for a certain companion missing from the group. If Daryl had gone off to his room for whatever reason, Rick swore he would handcuff the moody man to him, but he settled down when he finally spotted the hunter off in the corner, facing away from the rest of them. It looked like he was working on something by the way he was hunched over, hands grazing the wall in quick strokes, and Rick barely resisted joining him. It was pretty obvious to Rick when Daryl needed some space, and so he waited patiently until Daryl finally stepped back and stretched, keeping his eyes away from Rick as he moved to the kitchenette.

It was tempting to go and see whatever Daryl had been working on, surrounded by other paintings and additions to the wall, but Rick didn't have time to get a closer look before Carol spoke up.

"E-Excuse me," she whimpered, mousey voice struggling to find sway over the crowd. Hershel put down the harmonica to let Carol speak, and that seemed to encourage her further as she continued, "I thought... " she cleared her voice, looking between each one of them. "I thought it might be a good idea to… well, reserve a spot on a wall to honor those not with us anymore."

Carol's eyes landed on Rick and he felt queasy under the crushing weight of reality in her stare. They had all played around and goofed off and it was just enough to help Rick ease his sorry soul for just a few hours, and the return to shame, as waning as it was, made his stomach knot painfully again.

"I think that's a great idea," Maggie asserted and her smile at her sister was bittersweet as she sauntered to the paint.

Beth barely managed a smile back as she joined Maggie next to Carol, the two sisters helping Hershel to his crutches until the rest of the group trickled forth, each with their own color of paint. Rick lingered back, bouncing his babbling daughter and trying not to think that he was using that as an excuse to keep his distance. Minutes later, he didn't even have that option as Carol came forth and gestured for Judith.

"I got her," nodded Rick, smiling hollowly.

The gray woman smiled knowingly at him and shook her head, gesturing again for Judith. "It might help, Rick. Wouldn't hurt to give it a try, at least."

He sighed and nodded at her, kissing Judith's soft forehead before joining the mass before him that began to disperse, parting for him one by one until he was staring at the prison wall covered with names. _Jim, Jacqui, T-Dog, Ed_, the list was far larger than Rick could have ever imagined before he lived through the apocalypse, but anymore and it was just second nature to become numb to all this, detached as if this were little more than a shopping list. _Amy, Dale, Jimmy, Otis. _His eyes grazed each name and paid his due respect, reliving the dark, beautiful, twisted moments of every listed name, every past person he had known. They were both familiar and far-away, a dream within a reverie that were gossamer spiderwebs of what had been and could have been. _Tomas, Andrea, Merle, Sophia -_

Rick's heart shuddered as he read on, trying not to let the pricking in his eyes force him to turn away from the dozens of names, these people's epitaphs, their legacies.

_Shane_.

It had all been a different life, a different time, a different man, and the man standing before the wall now felt too much and knew too much ad nauseum. Rick had learned young to compartmentalize, had mastered his emotions as a sheriff, and had become deadened to the world as a survivor. It was a lifelong defense mechanism that prepared him for the apocalypse, only it hadn't, and in this prison, in front of these last bits and pieces of humans no more, he felt utterly defenseless.

_Mom._

Throat thick with emotion, Rick tried not to make a scene and hastily dipped his finger into the red paint can, clumsily scribbling onto the wall four heavy letters just above Carl's handwriting.

_Lori._

The weight of the name seemed to slide from his hand like wet paint, a glistening red of his guilt reading one shameful word, plastered from his heart to the wall, and suddenly he could breathe. This is where the remorse belonged, nestled in amply with the weight of everyone else's, and Rick found that turning away was easier than it had been in years.

* * *

><p>"I see Judith got to you, too," Maggie teased when she spotted Rick's purple beard and plopped down next to Glenn, who immediately intertwined their fingers.<p>

"She's a little pistol, that's fer damn sure," Rick laughed and reached up to his facial hair to try flaking it out, giving up quickly when he felt just how many clumps adorned his beard. "It's gonna take some serious scrubbing to get it all out. Let's hope it's not oil-based, heh."

"That goes for me, too," chuckled Oscar, the bright yellow paint flecks luminous in the stark contrast of his dark beard and skin. The whole lot of them were covered in paint one way or another, though Daryl, Carl, Beth, and Oscar seemed to have the brunt of it from their paint fight. Carol had a scruffy pink smear on her cheeks in the same shade as Axel's painted moustache, and Maggie and Glenn had drawn ambiguous figures on each other.

Glenn smirked and stroked his bare chin with his freehand. "The wonders of shaving…"

"You mean puberty?"

Oscar's quip turned Glenn's face stoney as he narrowed his eyes at the felon. "No, I mean _shaving_. You know, with a razor? Something you other guys wouldn't know anything about." He gestured at the whole room agitatedly before going back to rubbing his hairless face.

Rick looked around at the men in particular in the room - Hershel, Axel, Oscar, Daryl, even him - and noted how all of them looked quite grizzly except for Glenn and Carl. It wasn't a look he favored back in the old days, but without a mirror readily available to look into daily, Rick had barely even realized his own ample facial hair growth. The extra fuzz was convenient enough with the freezing weather and pouring sweat he dealt with these days, but he found himself quite thankful it wasn't something he had to see very often. His own reflection haunted him sometimes.

"I find that the ladies seem to like a bit of hair," Axel quirked his moustache, still slicked with paint, and leaned back to turn his attention to Carol in the kitchen. "'Specially a good 'stache."

"I don't know what kind of 'ladies' told you that in prison," came Maggie's leering response. She was leaning against Glenn, fingers still locked, and smirking at Axel as she said, "but a man is his sexiest when he's clean shaven." At that, she leaned over and kissed her boyfriend's bare, blushing face.

"That right?" Oscar crossed his arms, grinning back playfully at the woman. "What about you, Carol?"

Carol kept her back to the group as she whipped some of the pumpkin filling together in a cup, Axel clearly tense and hanging on her every word, and shook her head at them before answering."I don't mind a man with some fur." The grin on Axel's face had a victorious gleam to it as he touched his moustache, looking to each one of them loftily, until Carol continued with an evident smile to her words. "So long as it isn't pink."

There was laughter as they teased one another, as they joked about Hershel resembling a young St. Nick and Daryl's splotchy redneck mane and Rick's beastly mountain man muzzle, and that's when Maggie turned her attention to Rick with a devious grin.

"Well, what do you think, Rick?"

Her question was innocent enough, but her tone held an edge to it that whispered some secret innuendo in its fine print, and as much as Rick grappled with the nuance, he fell short of any ideas as to her allusions. After a long pause, he assumed he was just jumping to conclusions and shrugged, thinking back to when he shaved daily and how baby soft his face was as opposed to now. "Reckon I prefer clean-shaven."

Maggie's grin widened and her eyes sparkled, and Oscar seemed to stiffen at Rick's answer. "See? Rick agrees with me."

"Best keep an eye on Glenn, then," Axel joked, smiling at Rick.

Glenn shot Axel a look and was quick to come to Rick's defense. "Don't think I'm Rick's type, man."

Rick exasperatedly slid his hands down his face, chuckling dismally at being the center of their banter, and quickly tried to cut it short before it swerved too far into his love life, however nonexistent or inspired it might have currently been. Turning to Carl, he patted him on the shoulder and interrupted the back and forth raillery orbiting him by clearing his throat definitively. "Why don't you go 'n get cleaned up, son?"

"I'm not even that dirty, Dad," he groaned, but Carol intervened helpfully.

"He's right, Carl," Carol chided and turned to face the rest of the room, eyeing each one of them critically. "That goes for all of you. Dinner's almost ready, so go on and get somewhat presentable at least."

At the sound of their upcoming feast nearly being ready, most of them scrambled to their feet and trickled out of the dining area, happy chatter floating to Rick's ears from everyone, save for Daryl. He left immediately, quietly, like a thief in the night with a single glance back that left Rick rooted to the spot.

"You coming, Dad?" encouraged Carl, nudging him towards the stairs.

Rick looked down at his son and smiled before easing him onwards with a nod, shaking himself from the daze-inducing smoulder of Daryl's cut of cornflower blue. "Nah, you go first, buddy. Think you got the worst of it."

Most of them left towards the showers, leaving Rick nearly alone in the painted room. He approached the wall of their handprints, trying to memorize every inch of the colorful mosaic lain before him, and even reached up to gently touch the still drying paint coalescing into one happy lattice of prints. The paint congealed darkly as it dried, imprinting their hands together for as long as these walls stood; Judith, Carl, Beth, Hershel, everyone. Rick's hand rose so that his fingers were tentatively tracing the outline of Daryl's orange hand, so close to his own blue one that they were touching, until his eyes drifted over to where Daryl had been painting in the corner.

Fingertips tinted with the copper orange, Rick looked over his shoulder to assure that Carol was still busied with the food preparations before striding over to the orange wording on the wall. When he finally stood in front of it, he was flooded with overwhelming stupefaction.

With far more detail than Rick would've thought possible, Daryl had painted a small portrait of what could only be Rick on the stone wall. It had clearly been quick work with deliberate strokes, as if this were some ostentatious, taboo grafitti that the artist hadn't wanted to be caught red handed in. Above it was some scrawled writing, messy and short handed, as if added in afterthought, that left Rick with a bittersweet affect.

'Never know best'.

Gaping, Rick stared at the words. It was like a sucker punch had gone and upturned Rick's stomach, flopping sadly at the idea that Daryl felt so conflicted by him, enough to doubt himself and what was best in all this. At the apparent doubt Daryl was feeling, Rick was spurred with bracing determination back to the paint table to grab the light blue paint can and dug his fingers in to re-wet his fingers with color.

It was as if some blind confidence had overcome him, some mind-numbing pride and drive to ease that self-doubt that plagued Daryl as he smeared the paint onto his canvas, coating the color around until it resembled a face. Rick was surprised at his own urge, having never been artistically inclined in his life and would most likely just create some embarrassing blue blob, but at the moment all that mattered was Daryl. His fingers worked with a purpose and eventually brought a touch of semblance to the blue mess on the wall, features cut sharp and thin and starting to look less like any generic oblong and more like a person, a particular hunter.

Rick stepped back slowly to admire his work, happy that it wasn't just random smears and splotches adorning the wall next to his own likeness, and after a thoughtful moment, stepped forward once more.

His fingers danced on the stone, less graceful than he'd like, and wrote out words just above Daryl's script. His own penmanship was nothing to write home about, but it was the message that Rick really cared to imprint on the other man and finally put the empty paint can down with a tin clatter.

'Always does best'.

Smiling to himself, Rick felt a mixture between embarrassment and pride at what he had accomplished. It wasn't perfect, not even damn near close to being such, but he hoped it was enough to make the other man smile.

When he turned around, Rick felt his soaring heart sink slightly at the sight of Carol standing there, bewildered eyes soft and plaintive as they scoured each painted face, skimmed each word stamped into the wall. Rick froze in wiping his hands on his neckerchief and stared back at her, an awareness spread on her tiny features and a look of hurt knitting her brow, before he quickly pocketed the rag and turn tailed to the steps. He stiffly made it up the stairs, forcing himself against looking back, against running his messy hands through his hair anxiously, against feeling faulted somehow.

Rick stopped by his cell and ruffled through his meager stash of clothing, trying to find something appropriate, before sighing and settling on a typical black button up and some less-than ratty jeans. No use in dressing all fancy when refinement and style were things of grandeur within a hideous world. The best anyone could ask for is keeping the blood and the stench on their clothing subjugated, as if that were a damn luxury, he thought with dark humor. Grabbing the clothes, Rick left his cell and kept his eyes firmly from the kitchen as he walked away. He reached the showers just as Carl was leaving, hair washed and face clean and clothes fresh, and smiled at him before entering the now-empty showers himself.

The feel of hot water hitting his body after the abuse of the world felt euphoric, each time he showered a new experience of soul-cleansing stimulation of the highest order this life allowed for so long. Goosebumps ran rampant over Rick's flesh as it adjusted to the searing water and quelled his body in a spine-tingling sigh.

There were very few things Rick could imagine anymore that gave him these rapturous chills, this mind fogging bliss of escapism that transported him to a deliriously rhapsodic reality of something even remotely beautiful. As he ran his fingers through his hair, using whatever brand name shampoo handy to clean himself with, his mind wandered vacantly on the remnant of that thought. Here, in the prison, safe and sound and without the constant fear of it all being pulled out from under him, Rick settled into a less animalistic integrity and resumed a more human role with human emotions and human needs. He was feeling more connected with his kids, his family, and really, after everything, even himself.

As far as Rick was concerned, knowing himself had meant knowing his moral foundation, grounding himself in the patriarchal role of a leader and helping his own at the cost of just about anything.

But here in the prison, he was unable to ignore his growing appetite for Daryl, unable to blame his loose thoughts on the disquiet with Lori, unable to bury this gnawing innate attention for Daryl beneath the weight of survival. Intent was becoming clearer here within safety, and Rick had been blindsided by its razor-sharp clarity.

Rick exhaled his bliss and breathed in his desire, lungs filling with some strange yearning and eyes fluttering closed as he fixated on the feel of the scalding droplets travelling down his body pleasantly. The soapy suds of his crisp smelling shampoo lathered all around him, making him feel so much like a human being again, and cascaded down the curve of his back and stomach to pool around the drain he stood over.

If it ever came down to it, could he be intimate with Daryl?

Squeezing his eyes shut tight, Rick wondered at the concept. It was hard to imagine ever getting to know someone else that way, especially another man, as Rick had only ever been that way with Lori and his experience with, well, _everything _was really quite limited. Lori had never been very adventurous in the bedroom and Rick hadn't even known how to begin to approach that conversation. Rick had always been affected by Daryl, drawn to him in ways he only recently started to fathom and understood his attraction to the other man. But, really, how far did that attraction go? Did it stop just short of the bedroom, or would Rick eventually swallow his nerves and venture out past his boundaries and expertise? Could he manage that with Daryl?

The quivering spasm settling in his pelvis told him 'try'.

Rick's eyes cracked open, head bowed and shoulders hunched, to down his sudsy body at the spark of life he felt in his core trailing down hotly between his legs. His dick was hard to ignore, protruding from the soap in his pubic hair and aching with some quiet, muted need, pleading and wanting. He closed his eyes again and swallowed thickly. This wasn't a part of his body he had paid much mind to over the past few months, and he felt the bulging neglect jumping at nervous, wispy thoughts of Daryl.

Slowly, Rick reached for his swelling erection with one, hesitant hand and cranked the water as hot as it would go with his other. His breath hitched, seeing color blossoming behind his tight eyelids at the various stimulation and his heart lurched at the sudden attention he was giving himself.

Being with another man was a foreign concept to him, not something he was morally against, but not something he ever thought he'd be doing either. It left him with little to fantasize about, as all he had ever seen of another man was them having sex with a woman on TV or Shane jacking off on the couch next to him. It was sexually frustrating, his dick twitching for something, _something, _on his part, even if it were just to get off for the first time in months, but Rick felt lacking and helpless as far as what he was getting off to. It hadn't mattered very often to him in the past to have something to masturbate to and had managed fine, but here, now… It felt inadequate and aimless.

Hissing between his clenched teeth, Rick gave himself one last squeeze, final and enticing and so goddamn tormenting, before letting go and turning off the water. With their limited reservoir, taking military showers was a house rule that he was currently breaking in his horny fog of Daryl, Daryl, _Daryl_, and had to press his forehead to the cool of the shower tile to settle himself.

With deep breaths and forced thoughts, Rick finally managed to get himself under control enough to leave the shower stall, a gulf of soap suds and wet paint pooling in his wake, and toweled himself off.

Rick threw his clothes on once he was dry and rubbed the steam from the mirror to examine himself. He wished he could say that he didn't look different, didn't feel different, that he was the same, emotionless man he had grown to be for years. It was something familiar and safe. But this man in his reflection was in stark contrast to Sheriff Rick Grimes, a man married to Lori and smiling in front of Carl and secretly drowning in his desolation.

He smoothed out the wrinkles in his shirt with his hands, watching as his palms dipped and bulged in places they didn't used to. All excess fat was gone from him, leaving a hard, cut body that he might have been proud of once, before he realized what hell it took to get here. There wasn't much he could do for his hair or his beard, not without keeping everyone waiting on him, so he finished fixing his shirt before smiling slightly and turning to leave.

It was Thanksgiving after all.

A/N:

Hello :)

So, in light of a recent car accident I was in, my life went to shit and now that I'm putting it back together, I'm finding less time to sit and type out a chapter in a matter of days like before. So I ask of you all, would you prefer longer chapters and longer wait times, or shorter chapters and shorter wait times?


	16. Treasure

.:Treasure:.

The room was warm and welcoming upon entering it, all lit up with color and happy faces, and Rick smiled as he hurried down the steps to the dining area. Everyone turned at his appearance to smile back, most of them seated around the cloth-covered tables, and Hershel scooted to make room for him on a bench between him and Carl. His son had Judith on his lap and was bouncing her on his knees, her tiny fingers grasping at his thumbs for balance while she giggled, and Carl smiled up at him beneath the brim of his hat.

Carol was in the kitchen with Maggie and Beth, her back towards Rick and her hands busy with clanking plates and slamming cabinets. Rick tried not to worry himself over her behavior and sat down in the spot Hershel had provided, who clapped his shoulder with neighborly affection and squinted eyes.

"In the past year, I never would've imagined we'd have cause for celebration, or much to be thankful for," Hershel's voice was kind and genuine, and he squeezed Rick gratefully. "But you've surprised us all, Rick."

Glenn nodded as well, making room for Maggie as she divvied around their collection of mismatched fine china and a hodgepodge of silverware. There were knicks and splinters missing from the edges of the plates, but it was all they had managed to salvage over the past few months at the prison. Dinnerware and cutlery wasn't exactly a priority of theirs before recently.

"No kidding. Who woulda thought we'd have roasted goose cooked in something other than a fire? Or that I'd have a lovely lady to share it with?" As Maggie set the plate down, she scoffed at her boyfriend and gave him a quick kiss, leaving Glenn grinning.

When Maggie handed him a plate, Oscar took it gratefully and said, "Yeah. Never thought I'd be happy staying in prison."

"We owe you a lot, Rick," Maggie agreed and handed Rick his own plate, who took it humbly and shook his head at her. Spending every night in his squad car and casing prime locations and suspects, tearing through walkers with the remorse of shredding wet paper, seeking shelter after damnable shelter until finding this serendipitous prison, it was all paramount to Rick's fundamental, selfless nature. He did what had to be done, thankless jobs and all, and that was the end of it. But the rare times when the thanks did come, Rick could only bow his head and shrug it off with an awkward laugh.

"Wasn't all me," defended Rick, looking each one of them in the eyes with sincerity. "Every one of you worked harder than I could'a ever asked for to get to where we are. Even when I…" Rick swallowed thickly, smile faltering for just a moment as he chose his words carefully. "Had to step down for a while. Couldn't have done this alone."

The moment was heavy with appreciation, and Rick looked at each face surrounding him, searching for one in particular that needed to hear these words the most and frowning when he couldn't find it.

"Where's Daryl?" he voiced.

Before anyone could respond, a gruff voice answered awkwardly from behind him, "right here", causing him to turn around on the bench. In the doorway stood Daryl, stiff and fidgeting with his belt loops as he met Rick's eyes with a touch of embarrassment to his cheeks. Rick traced his sight down to Daryl's cheeks, his jawline, and eventually his lips.

Daryl's face was newly smooth and hairless, the sharp line from his jaw to his chin void of any obstruction to Rick's hungry eyes, and Rick caught himself staring shamelessly.

He cleared his throat and averted his eyes quickly, trying not to lose his focus once more to those far more evident lips of Daryl's, the birthmark near his lip now apparent and drawing Rick's eyes like a magnet. As Daryl descended the steps and walked across the room, the inevitable shitstorm of banter ensued, starting with Oscar who had a devilish grin on his face.

"Well holy shit, who do we have here?" Oscar smirked.

"Is that a _beauty mark_?" laughed Maggie, squinting her eyes when she came closer to give him a plate. Daryl took it without looking at her, keeping his eyes downward, and other hand reaching up to cover the freckle on his cheek. "Never noticed that on ya before."

Beth was setting glasses down on the table and startled when she looked up and saw Daryl, everyone of them varying different shades of surprise, and said with wide eyes, "You look so… different."

"Pretty, even. Like a girl," teased Axel, stopping cold when Daryl glared pure molten amort at the ex-convict, and squirmed under the venomous stare. Even with a pale, smooth face, Daryl was still one of the most intimidating men Rick had ever seen in his career when the hunter wanted to be. It must've been some Dixon charm embedded in him that he knew how to turn on and off at the flip of an insult or threat.

"Like all those girls you met in prison?" Glenn rebuked, making room for Daryl to sit next to him. He sat directly across from Rick, looking up at him tentatively as if he were already regretting his decision to shave.

Seeing that look splintered Rick's heart and drove him to speak up over the back and forth around them.

"I like it," he said with a firm smile, filling the space between them with a comforting confidence and silencing the shit-givers and nay-sayers. "Looks good, Daryl."

Rick hated the inadequacy of his words, the inability to piece together just how stunning Daryl was beneath the mask of dirt and grime he wore, just how enchanted Rick was by him. Even before Daryl shaved, Rick had always had an interest, a growing fixation, in the other man's atypical features. They often told Rick more than the man himself ever did, with gaunt cheeks flowing from prominent cheek bones, thin cut eyes set beneath stern, serious brows, and delicate lips usually pulled into an unapproachable sneer so unbefitting of the compassionate, tender bloodhound that was Daryl Dixon.

His jawline was angular and inveigling, leading up his squared, masculine chin to his lips that divulged more secrets than Daryl seemed aware of as they dared to turn upwards, shyly, at Rick's words. Rick drank in the details of the hunter, so innocently captivating as if they knew nothing of their enticing nature to the man currently ravaging them for their nuance and innuendo.

Clearing his throat again, Rick tore his eyes away from the younger man all open with hope and vulnerability before him and said, "So y'all can go…" Rick paused and searched for an appropriate word to say in front of Carl and Hershel, and settled on the first thing that came to his mind. "Piss off," he finished playfully, echoing Daryl's words to him earlier.

"Well said, man," Daryl nodded his thanks with a half-smile that pulled at Rick's heart overwhelmingly and Rick tried not to grin back like a madman.

The group heckled each other a bit more before turning their attention to the happy tidings of Thanksgiving dinner being prepared, and when the goose was ready to be carved and cut, Daryl was allowed to do the honors. It seemed everybody else was also quite eager to provide the man with something to celebrate on his first real Thanksgiving, and Rick couldn't express his gratitude enough at that. The mood was overall amplified by Daryl's good-natured participation, his face hard with concentration and then light in satisfaction as he carved the lean goose.

The myriad of smells wafted through the dining room, but most prominent of all was the roasted goose browned and crisped in its own fat and glaze, making Rick's mouth water lavishly.

Hunger was a sensation that Rick had grown quite used to, gnawing at his innards until he had eventually learned to mute it and tune it out as he handed his pregnant wife his bowl of soup, his teenage son his can of peas, his family everything he had. But now, with the flurry of emotions today, Rick found himself ravenous and indulged in it while numerous people crowded around Daryl and the poultry like scavengers, hoping to pilfer some meat.

"Who wants the wishbone?" Carol called, holding up the osseous matter all covered in gristle and superstition.

Carl was quick to jump up and call dibs, having been used to automatically getting the turkey cartilage in the Grimes' Thanksgiving tradition, but Rick slowed him down with a hand on his shoulder and said, "Easy, Carl. I think it's only fair that Daryl snap his first Thanksgiving wishbone."

There was a frown of reluctance on Carl's face as he nodded and watched Carol hand the hunter the wishbone, who dexterously twirled it between his fingers for a moment before walking over to Carl and holding the bone out to him. With wide eyes, the teenager looked up at him, and Daryl cleared his throat and tried to shrug nonchalantly.

"Yer poutin's bad as yer old man's, kid," Daryl smirked, such a usual expression looking foreign on his clean-cut face.

Rick bit his tongue at the sight of Daryl's lips and ivory skin pulling into that trademark smirk, the novelty of it all nearly striking him deaf and dumb to what was going on around him. He vaguely registered Daryl's remark and had to turn his eyes elsewhere. "Like you're one to talk," he muttered playfully, eyes flickering back to Daryl's sculpted face fleetingly.

At Daryl's extended hand, Carl's face lit up and grabbed onto the other end of the 'Y' shape, holding it with practiced fingers as he grinned widely and tried to explain, "Okay, so, the rules are: two people make a wish, and whoever gets the bigger piece - "

"I know how to play, brat," he cut off. "Merle 'n I'd do this whenever I'd bring home some fowl. Ugly sum'bitch would always take the bigger piece, though, no matter who got it."

Carl seemed unaffected by Daryl's comment, but Rick cringed at it. It wasn't often that Daryl mentioned his brother, not since he had developed a place snugly among friends, kin adopted as opposed to blood born, and the rest of them let sleeping dogs lie. Merle was a thing of the past, a ghost that Daryl seemed more than happy to just be exorcised of despite his brash reaction to Merle's disappearance originally, and hearing his name was a jarring thing for them. It grated on Rick's ears harshly, tainting Daryl's burnished face with some painful affliction before he wiped it away completely with his usual aloof sneer, as if Merle had never even crossed his mind.

But the moment was over before it began and Daryl had moved on with the pregnant snap of the wishbone.

"Got it," Carl crowed triumphantly.

The longer twig of the bone stemmed from Carl's grasp, hesitant and indecisive for a moment before reaching up to offer it to Daryl. "Here." He composed his voice into something cool and collected and placed the fragment into Daryl's hand. "It's a stupid game, anyway."

Daryl closed his hand around the gift, eyes bewildered from the gesture, and pocketed the longer sprig with a half-smile and a 'thanks', looking for the life of him as if he didn't know how to handle the token. It was a warm moment that both Carl and Daryl tried to play off as no big deal, as some trifle exchange that hadn't left them both looking away and smiling humbly, and Rick couldn't hide the grin it brought to his face.

"Why don't we all say grace?" Carol suggested while she wiped her hands on her dishrag. An array of food was situated behind her, all warm and tantalizing, ranging from crispy green beans to baked sweet potatoes with molasses, fresh cranberry sauce and spiced gravy made from goose fat. There was something still baking in the oven, obscured from Rick's vision and smell, but he dismissed it in favor of eyeing the main course, the glistening protein roasted to a golden brown and lathered in a dripping, mouth-watering glaze.

Hershel smiled and carefully rose to standing, gesturing for his daughters to join him. "I think that's a lovely idea, Carol. Why don't we all gather 'round and I'll make this quick."

Rick was hesitant to comply, not nearly as eager to thank some idle being raining down hell upon them, or simply just absent and withdrawn at best. But he couldn't step aside from his family coming together, hand in hand, smiles and warmth and love too rare to pass on. So Rick stepped forward and grabbed Carl's hand with his right, jumping slightly when he felt a warm, familiar hand slide into his other.

Looking to his left met him with Daryl, his face looking soft and curious, as if searching for permission, but his grasp showing no signs of releasing Rick's hand any time soon. Rick gave him an affirmative smile and squeezed his hand gently, heart rate spiking when Daryl squeezed back.

Respectful silence fell upon them, even from Judith who also seemed to feel the magnitude in the air from her makeshift crib, and Hershel paused for a contemplative moment until finally clearing his throat.

"I just want to take a moment to say that, despite these hellish times, I truly feel blessed to be surrounded by such good folk. You are all my family now, every last one of you, and I feel confident saying that -" Hershel's voice quivered before he continued. "That I likely wouldn't still be here without you all.

"These old bones can only take so much," he went on to say, looking so weary and world-worn in that moment. "But being here with you lot makes it all worthwhile."

Rick kept his eyes on Hershel, but at the man's words, he could feel his attention listing to his left. The hand in his own felt unbelievably warm and all-consuming as if there were some unbearable electricity between them, sparking at the skin on skin contact and sending tingles all through Rick's body. But he kept his eyes forward and his jaw clenched, not yet ready to see what was obscured behind Daryl's surely cloudy eyes.

"And it brings me back to Matthew six twenty, who tells us, 'Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in your heaven, for wherever your treasure is, your heart is'."

Hershel's voice rang and shuddered Rick's heart, and at that Rick dared to peek up from his bowed head, tilting it enough to glance sideways at Daryl. The other man was likewise watching him from the corner of his eye and quickly skittered away upon being caught. Rick swallowed thickly, his lips set firmly in a straight line as he dared to gently rub the heated skin beneath his thumb. Before Rick's eyes, Daryl reacted to his touch in minute ways that would've been indistinct to anyone else, but were unmistakable and commanding to Rick's hypersensitivity to the other man. The knitted brow, the parting of his lips, the sharp intake of breath and the stiffening of his body, as if he had to reconstruct his composure, reestablish self-control against the shivers, the touches, the foggy promises being rubbed into his pressure point.

Beneath his thumb and the small circles it massaged in Daryl's wrist, Rick could feel his thudding pulse, hyper and erratic, and as he stroked the manic fluttering Daryl finally looked over at him again.

It felt stupid and sappy and so damn _good _being close to someone again, but the fact that it was Daryl made this all possible in the first place. Rick couldn't imagine ever attempting something like this with anyone, not since his marriage fell to shambles, but Daryl had somehow managed to germinate himself into Rick's depleted, wasted heart long before he even knew he was affected by the drought.

He was high on this other man and he never wanted to come down, hated the idea of leaving this moment, and the fear Rick felt towards that was quickly becoming overshadowed by just how much he wanted it.

"So tonight, let us know our treasure."

Daryl was looking at him with something akin to yearning, something dark and cloudy that lidded his eyes heavily and sent thrills down Rick's spine. He was so sensitive to anything Daryl and it left him trembling under the other man's gaze, so tinged with something Rick was scared to guess at. Rick's mind seemed to orbit Daryl, Daryl, _Daryl_, and especially having left his shower far needier than usual, Rick's body was having a hard time processing the proximity. In that moment, heedy with connection and want, Daryl felt too far away for Rick's liking and had to take a deep breath to steady himself.

"Let us know our hearts."

Rick's breath fled his lungs when he felt Daryl's fingertip trace along his own, skin hot and alight with static and dark eyes delving in Rick's. Daryl's lips were no longer gasping open but were tight and tense, bottom lip held between his teeth and digging into it with reticence, and Rick's eyes dipped down to them. They were a soft, inviting red from the strain and Rick bit his own lip at the sight. When his eyes eventually flicked back up to Daryl's, he saw that they had been watching him carefully that whole time, and Rick felt something stirring in his abdomen at that.

"And let us find it in one another."

Hershel's words were a faraway undertone to Rick's thundering heart and thoughts, riled and chaotic and demanding reception, but with flushed cheeks and hopeful eyes, Rick nodded with the rest of them, a resounding chorus of certitude to Rick and Daryl's own little world.

"Amen."


End file.
